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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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Class _£JjLi 



Book 3-^S 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



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PICTURESQUE JOURNEYS 
IN AMERICA 



OF 



THE JUNIOR UNITED TOURIST CLUB. 



EDITED BY THE 



REV. EDWARD T. BROMFIELD. 



PRO FUSEL V ILL USTRA TED. 




N E \V Y O R K : 

R. WORTHINGTO^ -^ 3roadway. 
1883. 



Copyright, 

i832. 

By R. WORTHINGTON. 



PRESS OF J. J, LITTLE & CO., 
WOS. 10 TO 30 A5T0R PLACE, NEW irORK. 



PREFACE. 




HILE the following papers may be said, in a certain sense, to tell 
their own story, it nevertheless seems proper to make one or two 
preliminary statements with respect to the general plan and pur- 
port of this book. 

The design has been, under cover of an imaginary class or 
circle of young people, led by a trusted companion or tutor, to 
introduce the reader to some of the most picturesque portions of our country, and 
to bring together such facts and sentiments from the general field of observation 
and reading as naturally belong to the places illustrated. 

With the above purpose in his mind, the editor frankly admits that, from the 
first, he felt his own inefficiency, and that he feels it more keenly even now that the 
work, such as it is, is done. Its due performance, indeed, would seem to involve 
an extent and rangre of information and attainment far ereater than that to which 
even his most appreciative friends could lay claim on his behalf, together with an 
almost superhuman faculty of condensation, owing to the strictly limited dimensions 
predetermined for the book. The persuasive influence of the publisher was, 
however, in a moment of weakness, allowed to prevail, and, having once undertaken 
the duty, there was nothing for it but to persevere to the end. 

In respect to two of the literary features of this work (the illustrations speaking 
for themselves), the editor is perhaps justified in claiming some merit. He has 
taken conscientious pains to verify facts and dates, so that the book may be accepted 
as both fair and accurate, as far as it goes ; and he has sought to give it a healthful, 
moral, and intellectual stamp. 

He may claim, also, as some justification for attempting this task, his own 
warm sympathies with young people. As the father of a large family, he feels, 
more than he can express, the importance of the season of youth, and its need of 



iv Preface. 

loving and timely counsel from the lips of experience, with just such helps as this 
and other instructive and interesting publications are designed to give. And how 
often does it not happen, in every intelligent home circle, that some beautiful or 
striking picture furnishes the text for an animated conversation, in which the 
appetite for knowledge is quickened, and opportunity given to correct error, and to 
inculcate sound and lofty sentiments ! It is his earnest hope that this book may 
prove serviceable in these important particulars, and that, while offering some 
suggestions of amusement for winter evenings, it may awaken in the minds of many a 
love for that kind of reading which not only excites and stimulates, but strengthens 
and enriches the faculties of the mind. 

New York, August, 1882. 



1 



1 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



> 



CHAPTER I. — Introductory. ..... i 

CHAPTER II.— The Yosemite Valley. 

Mountain Ride from Madera — Mariposa Trees and Redwoods — Peak of Inspiration — Bridal Falls —Yosemite 

Falls — Vernal Falls — Mirror Lake — Whittier's " Lake Side." _ _ ■, 

CHAPTER III.— The Yosemite. 

Sir \V. Scott and Bret Harte— Geological Features— Cathedral and Sentinel Rocks — North and South 

Domes — Boulders — Discovery of the Yosemite — Indians — Duke of Sutherland 17 

CHAPTER IV. — California and San Francisco. 

Geographical— Early Lawlessness— 1849 and 1875— City Hall and Chinese Quarter— Baron Hubner's 
Adventure— Seal Rocks— Pacific at Santa Clara— Trip to Silver Mine— Railroad and Canon Scenery 
— Gold Mining — Glacier Moraines 26 

CHAPTER V. — The Great American Basin and Utah. 

Position and Character of the Basin — Great Desert — Corrina — Rocky Mountain Slopes — Devil's Slide — 
Moore's Lake — Colburn's Butte — Titanic Nomenclature — Springville Canon and the Wahsatch Range 
— Humboldt 43 

CHAPTER VI. — Salt Lake City and the Mormons. 

Approach from Ogden — Early Mormon History — Views of Salt Lake City — Mormon Endurance — Obnoxious 
Tenets — Polygamy and Despotism — Brigham Young — Emigrants on their Way — Dreams of Emi- 
grants — Work and Faith — Mormon Church in Earnest — Questions for Christian Churches — Camp 
Douglass and the Gentiles 52 

CHAPTER VII.— Rocky Mountain Scenery— South. 

Danng Engineering Feats — Aspects of Colorado — The Park System — Climate — Cafions — Central City and 

Leadville — Gray's Peak — Garden of the Gods — Manitou — Boulder City — An Emigrant Train 66 

CHAPTER VIII. — Rocky Mountains and the Yellowstone Park. 

An Extended Pic-nic — Access to the Park — The Lake — Adventure with Indians — Lower and Upper Falls — 
Grand Canon — Volcanic and Glacial Action — Rock Coloring — Icebergs and Submergence — Diluvium 
— Drifts and Boulders 77 

CHAPTER IX. — Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone Park, etc. 

Tower Creek Falls and Column Mountains — Hot Springs and Geysers — Chemical Action of Water and 
Atmosphere on Rocks — Meaning of Geyser — Explanation of Phenomena— Astounding Effects — Pris- 
matic Coloring of Water — Earthquakes— Forces of Nature — Human Strength and Weakness — Falls 
of Snake River ; 84 

CHAPTER X.— The Plains and Prairies. 

Extent and Elevation of Prairies— Why No Trees— Different Theories— Letter from Settler in Nebraska- 
Prairie Fires— The Buffalo— Peaceful Indians— Difference between Plain and Prairie — Military 
Reminiscences— A Pow-wow— Indian with 3calp— Sheridan— The Indian Problem— Wapiti 95 

V 



VI 



Contents. 



CHAPTER XL — Mountain Scenery in Pennsylvania. '•^'■^• 

Meaning of " Alleghany " — The Appalachians — Geological Features — Juniata and Susquehanna — Railway 
Cut — Sinking Spring — River of Yesterday — Kettle Run — Horse Shoe Bend — The Portage Rail- 
roads — Germans and Dutch— William Penn lo8 

CHAPTER Xn.- — The Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers. 

"Crooked River" — Lake Otsego, and Cooper — Uses and Abuses of Novels — Vale of Wyoming — Rise of 
the Delaware — Water Gap — The Missing Lake — Lovers' Leap — Historic Retrospect — Washington 
and Trenton 121 

CHAPTER XHL— Niagara Falls. 

General View — Fascination and Spell — Music of Niagara — Geological Changes — Cave of the Winds and 
Vertical Stairs — The American Fall — Horse-Shoe Falls — Proprietary Rights — Suspension Bridge — 
The Whirl|)ool — Historical Attractions— War of 1812— " Disastrous Nonsense" — Peace of 1814 128 

CHAPTER XIV.— Lake Superior. 

Extent and Appearance — The Pictured Rocks — Christian Nomenclature — Cascade and Great Cave — "Song 

of Hiawatha " — Idea and Merits of the Poem — AVhittier's Eagle's Quill 139 

CHAPTER XV. — Boston and the White Mountains. 

Boston Iront Bunker Hill — June 17th, 1775 — A Stupid King and Haughty Counsellors — Brother against 
Brother — The Boston Tea Party — Taxation and Representation — Beginnings of the Dispute — "The 
Hub " — Fighting for a Principle — White Mountain Region — Mt. Washington — Silver Cascade — 
Dangers of Mountain Travel — Crawford's Notch 146 

CHAPTER XVI. — The White ]\Iountains — Continued. 

The Atlantic System — Extent and Nomenclature — Franconia Mountains— Eagle Cliff— Canon Mountains — 

Hawthorne — " The Great Stone Face " — Whittier's " Franconia." 157 

CHAPTER XVII. — Other Picturesque Views of New England. 

Connecticut and the Plymouth Company — View near Granby— Why Connecticut is a small State — Mt. 
Ascutney, Mass. — The Missisquoi, Vt. — St. Albans — Raid and Rendezvous — Negro Head, Newport — 
Rhode Island and Roger Williams 162 

CHAPTER XVIII.— Lake George. 

Traveling by Imagination — The Ambuscade — Fourteen-Mile Island — General Montcalm and Fort Williani 
Henry — Sabbath Day Point — Abercrombie — Cat Mountain— Robert Rogers — War and Peace — 
Summer Day Glory — Whittier's " Summer by the Lakeside." 17' 

CHAPTER XIX.— The Adirondacks. 

Character of the Adirondack Region — Preston Ponds — Nature and Sadness — Lake St. Regis — Dfeer in the 
Adirondacks — The Ausable — Mr. Murray, and Trout Fishing — Lake H'enderson— L'pper Ausable 
Lake '81 

CHAPTER XX. — The Hudson River and the Catskills. 

The Palisades, their Geology and their Uses— Notes on Major Andr€, General Arnold, Washington Irving, 
and Carlyle— West Point, Tarrytown, etc., etc.— The Catskill Region— Sunset Rocks— Artist's 
Grotto — Rip Van Winkle — General Reflections — Conclusion 191 




Picturesque Tours in America, 



CHAPTER I. 




INTRODUCTORY. 



HE Junior United Tourist Club is an organization consisting of 
ten or twelve young people between the ages of fifteen and 
twenty, who are the regular members of the club, and a 
few older persons, chiefly parents of the members, who are 
termed "honorary members." It is not necessary for the pur- 
poses of this book to state precisely the "whereabouts" of this 
club. It may be assumed to be in some one of at least a hundred cities to 
be found on any good map of the United States. Every member of this 
club either has taken, or is presumed to have taken, one of the picturesque 
tours described in these pages. Ten very delightful evenings are supposed to 
have been spent in going over these tours, at the rate of one tour to an 
evening, under the leadership of one particular member who either by personal 
travel or by special reading is best qualified to take this responsible post. It is 
the duty of the member who leads the party to furnish sketches or engravings 
of the scene he proposes to describe, and every member contributes to the best 
of his ability to the common fund of fact, incident, and adventure thus gathered 



Picturesque Toilers in America. 



together. As some of the tours embrace journeys of thousands of miles, and the 
time is strictly limited to an hour and a half each evening, the reader will at once 
see that some very rapid traveling has been accomplished. He will also be 
prepared to learn (as the result of experience) that the members never seem to 
suffer from undue fatigue in consequence of their long journeys. 

The reader is invited to consider himself, without further introduction, a 
corresponding member of this club, and to imagine that he hears the conversa- 
tions repeated in the following pages. 



The Junior United Tourist Club held its first meeting for the season, 1881-2, 
at the house of Mr. Merriman. The meeting was called to order by the host, 
and elected Gilbert Warlike chairman, ^r^ te7n., and Grace Merriman, secretary. 

The roll was called, and the following members answered to their names, — 
Albert Victor, Bertram Harvey, Clara Harvey, Cyril Merriman, Grace Merriman, 
John Smith, Gilbert Warlike, Kate Goldust, Laura Smith, Lilian Wiseman ; also 
the following honorary members, — Professor Workman, Doctor Paulus, Mr. S. 
Harvey, Mr. Goldust, Mrs. Goldust, Mr. and Mrs. P. Merriman, Aunt Harriet 
Victor, Colonel and Mrs. Warlike. 

Resolved : That Professor Workman be President of the J. U. T. C. Appoint- 
ment accepted, and President formally inducted into the Chair. 

Resolved : That the meetings of the J. U. T. C. be held weekly in rotation 
at the houses of the honorary members ; that each meeting shall consist of (i) a 
short business session, (2) a conversational tour, (3) refreshments, etc. 

Resolved: That the Conversational Tour be strictly limited to one hour 
and a half in duration. 

Resolved: That the Tour for this evening be California and the Yosemite 
Valley, under the leadership of Miss Grace Merriman. 

Resolved : That the Tour for the next meeting be the Great American Basin 
and Utah. 

The President read the order of the evening for a Conversational Tour in 
California and the Yosemite Valley, and called upon Grace Merriman. 






CHAPTER I I 




THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 

RACE {i-cading from a MS.) : — When papa told U3 at home that 
he was about to take mamma, Cyril, and me, for a holiday to the 
Pacific coast, I had only the poorest kind of an idea, in a general 
way, of the places we were likely to visit. Of course I was 
delighted, and expected to have no end of fun and excitement; 
but I was shamefiilly ignorant about the Pacific coast, except 
from what I had learned in the school geographies, and from reading some 
of Bret Harte's sketches. I must not, I suppose, go into any particulars of 
our journey to San Francisco, but proceed according to the programme, by 
giving you some particulars of our trip from that city to the Yosemite Valley, 
an ever-to-be-remembered event or episode in my experience, and one which some- 
times seems as though it must have been a dream, so new and strange was every- 
thing. I only wish I could even faintly convey to the club the impressions I 
received. But I will do my best, according to the rules of the club, and I am 
thankful I have papa and mamma, to say nothing of Cyril, to help me through. 
Cyril : I was very observant, I assure you. 

Grace : We went by rail to a little town called Madera, and took what they 
call the stage to the Yosemite. There were eight of us inside, and four outside, 
drawn by four horses ; and I shall say nothing more about this part of the journey 
than that it was, for more than half the distance at least, a succession of jolts and 
thumps up the mountains. Mamma got very nervous sometimes, and said that if 
this were sight seeing she had rather stay at home. Papa and Cyril were outside, 
and I expected every minute or two to see one or both of them plump off. W"e 
had about twelve hours of this, and were right glad at last to be summoned to 
dismount at Mr. Clark's ranch, part farm and part hotel, where we found rest and 
refreshment, and spent the night. 

4 




BIG TREES OF MARIPOSA. 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



The next day we devoted to the big trees of Mariposa, about sixteen miles 
south of the Yosemite. I am fortunate enough to have a very good drawino- of 
the lower i^art of a group of these trees, and also one of a specimen of the red- 
wood tree, belonging to the same family, but not so gigantic in its proportions. 

The Mariposa grove is only three or four miles from Clark's ranch, and we rode 
there on mustangs or ponies. But what with looking at the trees, gathering speci- 
mens of the flowering shrubs, eating luncheon, and, if I must say so, a little mild 
flirtation on the part of some of our company — (here some side glances were 
directed toward Cyril) — the best part of a long day wore away before we alighted 
on the hospitable piazza of the ranch on our return. And now I must say a word 
or two about these same big trees, at the risk of telling you what you all very well 
know. Mariposa is the name of the county in California — some Indian name, I 
suppose — in which we are now traveling. A few years ago, — I do not know exactly 
what year, but probably about 1850, — when miners were prospecting everywhere 
along the Pacific coast for gold and other precious minerals, some of them 
discovered this and a few other groves of these big trees. A great stir was made 
about them, at once, as they are of an immense size — trunks from thirty to 
thirty-six feet in diameter ; a straight shaft, almost without leaf or branch, two 
hundred feet high, and then one or two hundred feet more on the top of that, 
throwing out enormous branches. Somehow or another the first imperfect 
specimens got into the hands of English botanists, and they christened the genus 
Wcllingtonia, after their famous Duke ; but our botanists found out that these big 
trees were not a family all by themselves, but had some respectable cousins called 
Redwood, a very familiar cone-bearing tree in California and other places on the 
Pacific coast. The redwoods cover an immense territory, and are used for all 
manner of purposes, and are very large trees too (though not so large as the big 
trees), forming dense forests. The botanical name of the redwood is Scqiioia 
scinpcrvirens, named in honor of an Indian chief; and so the American botanists 
called the big trees of Mariposa Sequoia gigantea, which is much more appropriate 
I think, than Wcllingtonia, besides being correct. 

Gilbert : What had the Duke of Welling-ton to do with these bigf trees, that 
Americans should be asked to call them after him ? I hope the English botanists 
will have the good sense to drop their absurd title. The Indian name is far better. 



The Yoseinite Valley. 



Grace : There are several groves of these trees on the terraces of the Sierra 
mountains, but nowhere else in the world, so far as is yet known. I think they are 
unquestionably the largest 
trees in the world. It is 
believed that they are al- 
most as old as the Christian 
era, judging from the rings 
of the trunks. 

Clara : Are there any 
young Scqiioice growing up, 
or is the race dying out ? 

The President : A very 
natural question, and one 
which can be answered 
satisfactorily. The race, 
happily, is not dying out, as 
there are trees in these 
groves of all sizes, from the 
yearlings just springing up 
from the seeds to the hoary 
monsters which evidently 
have been in existence cen- 
turies before the Christian 
era. Unless destroyed by 
forest fires the race, though 
not numerous, will prob- 
ably continue the pride and 
wonder of our western coast 
as long as the world lasts, 
or at least until far greater 
changes are wrought upon 
the surface of our planet 
than we can venture to pre- redwood tree. 




8 



Pictiiresqite Tours in America. 



diet. I should say that the Eucalyptus tree of Australia, belonging to an entirely 
different family, is almost as large in its native forests as our Sequoia. By the 
way. Miss Clara, did you go into any of the hollow trees ? 

Clara : Oh, of course. I went into the Pioneer's cabin, a hollow in the trunk 
of a tree capable of holding twelve persons ; and papa rode right through one of 




THE PEAK OF INSPIRATION. 



the long trunks on his mustang, without lowering his head the least bit. I could 
tell you a great deal more about these big trees, but if we are to see the Yosemite 
to-night, we must make haste. And I have some very fine pictures here of some of 
the objects of interest. 



The Yoseinite J^alley. 



The valley is, I think, about twenty-four miles from Clark's ranch. We go 
on mustangs of course. You are to suppose that it is a very hot day in June, and 
that there are plenty of flies. Up, up, up we go, ascending the western slopes of 
the Sierras, mostly through thick forests of redwood, cedar, and pine, till we come 
to a halting place, where we have lunch, and then on again, northward of course. 




YOSF.MITE VALLEY. 



till we reach the verge of a mighty precipice, called the Peak of Inspiration, wljen 
the valley of the Yosemite bursts with all its glory upon us. Baron Hiibner thus 
describes this view : " In front of us, on the opposite side of the Yosemite, one single 
immense block of square granite with a flattened summit and perpendicular flanks. 



lO 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



rises out of the valley beneath. The Mexicans gave it the name El Capitan. 
(It is 3,300 feet from the valley bottom, and almost perpendicular.) Further on, 




THE BRIDAL FALL. 



towards the north-east, on both sides of the abyss, rise smooth, vertical walls of 
rock, diversified here and there by peaks and domes, with narrow aerial terraces, 




YOSEMITE FALLS. 



12 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



out of which spring gigantic firs. The horizon is bounded by a complete wall of 
granite, higher than the mountains which surround the valley, and of which the top 

appears perfectly straight, 
highest 




Si 



e r r a 



VERNAL FALL. 



" This is the 
ridge of the 
Nevada." 

I quote this because it 
corresponds exactly with 
the first impression made 
upon me as I looked across 
the valley from the peak. 
1 do not think that either 
of the views I have here 
quite represents this effect, 
though they are admirable 
pictures. As we wind down 
from the peak into the 
'i valley, we get innumera- 
ble views, each different 
from the rest, and bring- 
ing new features of this 
wonderful scene before 
us. One of the first cas- 
cades we see is the Bridal 
Fali, which makes only 
two springs in a total leap 
of over 900 feet from the 
west side of the Cathe- 
dral Rock. We had the 
good fortune to see this 
fall at its best, as there 
had been very heavy- 



rains during the spring, and the flow of water was abundant. 




THL \iJbEMITE FALLb. 



H 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



Laura : Did you notice the wave or bend in the column of water, said to be 
due to the current of wind striking it in its long descent? 

Grace : I did not notice that, but I understand that it is quite apparent when 
the body of water is not too heavy. Here is a view of the Yosemite Falls, formed 
by the leap of the Yosemite Creek of the river Merced, over a cliff 2,600 feet high. 

John : About half a mile. 

Grace: There are three leaps, of which the highest is 1,600 feet. It is 
estimated that when the river is full, in the spring, about a million and a half 
of cubic feet of water pass over this fall every hour. This is perhaps the highest 
fall in the world. Here is a view of the Vernal Fall, very beautiful, though not so 
high as some of the others, being only from 350 to 400 feet. It falls over a 
perpendicular rock ; but steps are cut from the valley, and a brave and cool person 
can climb to the top if he thinks proper. At the top there is a breastwork of 
rock, so that one can enjoy the view without danger when once one is there. 
Papa and Cyril were both venturesome enough to undertake this trip. In this 
picture we see the breastwork to the right. 

I am not keeping exactly to the order in which the visitor approaches these 
several sights, but I find it easier to speak of them separately. I think that one 
of the loveliest features of the Yosemite Valley is the Mirror Lake, embosomed 
among the mountains, pinnacles, and domes, and reflecting all these objects, down 
to the minutest lichen on the rocks, on its perfectly smooth surface. Now and 
then, of course, a ripple steals over the water and temporarily dispels the lovely 
scene. As I sat by this lake in the stillness of the afternoon, on that summer's 
day, while our party roamed about among the rocks, Whittier's poem, " The Lake 
Side," came into my mind, and I found myself repeating : 



Tired of the long day's blinding heat, 

I rest my languid eye. 
Lake of the hills ! where cool and sweet. 

Thy sunset waters lie ! 



So seemed it when yon hill's red crown. 
Of old the Indian trod, 




MIRROR LAKE. 



i6 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



And, through the sunset air, looked down 
Upon the Smile of God.* 



Thanks, O our Father ! that, like him, 

Thy tender love I see, 
In radiant hill, and woodland dim. 

And tinted sunset sea. 
For not in mockery dost thou fill 

Our earth with light and grace, 
Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will 

Behind Thy smiling face. 

The President: Very aptly quoted, Grace. It is not often that we find bodies 
of water that are sufficiently smooth and clear to give this intensely powerful 
reflection of surrounding objects. Some of the smaller lakes in Canada have this 
quality in an extraordinary degree. The water is so clear, that you can look down 
many feet into the depths until, as you sail along, you seem to be floating in air, 
and the islands and shores, lined as they are with trees, are reproduced in inex- 
pressible vividness and beauty. But we are not yet nearly through our evening, 
and you have done almost all the talking so far, and I fear must be tired. 

Grace : I have finished my special talk,, and am thankful to be able to call 
upon my brother, who kindly undertook to help me. He will, if you please, take 
my place for the rest of this excursion to the Yosemite, and papa will say some- 
thing about California. 

* Indian phrase : " Smile of the Great Spirit." 



CHAPTER III, 




THE YOSEMITE. 

YRIL : When my sister spoke of the perpendicular cHff of the Vernal 
Falls, I had in my mind also a piece of poetry, and, to vary the enter- 
tainment a little, I will quote it, and then invite the club to guess the 
author's name. I should not be able to quote it correctly to-night, 
had I not a few minutes ago slipped into papa's library and copied the 
piece. Here it is : 



" And now, to issue from the glen, 
No pathway meets the wanderer's ken, 
Unless he climb, with footing nice, 
A far projecting precipice." 

Dr. Harvey: If you had not said that you had copied the lines I should have 
credited you with the impromptu authorship ; but now that I think of it, there is a 
certain rhythm and ring even in that short quotation which makes me think of Sir 
Walter Scott.* 

. CvKiL : You are right, sir; but if I quote the concluding lines of the stanza, 
their applicability to the scenes now before us, notwithstanding the disparity of 
circumstances, and surroundings, will, I think, be admitted by every one ; names, of 
course, being different. 



" And mountains, that like giants stand 
To sentinel enchanted land. 
High on the south, huge Ben-venue 
Down on the lake in masses threw 

* It is from his description of Loch Katrine— of course a much larger piece of water than the Mirror Lake of the 
Vosemite, which is only a mile in circumference. 

2 17 



1 8 Picturesque Tours in America. 

" Crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled, 
The fragments of an earlier world : 
A 'wildering forest feathered o'er 
His ruined sides and summit hoar ; 
While on the north, through middle air, 
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare." 

The President: Miss Grace alluded to Bret Harte in her introduction. Does 
any member of the club recollect his poem upon the big trees ? 

Laura : I have it, sir. It is entitled "On a Cone of a Big Tree, or Scqrioia 
gigantea." He says: 

" Thy sire saw the light that shone 
On Mohammed's uplifted crescent. 
On many a royal gilded throne 
, And deed forgotten in the present. 

" He saw the age of sacred trees. 

And Druid groves and mystic larches ; 
And saw from forest domes like these 
The builder bring his Gothic arches." 

His concluding thought, as expressed in the next quotation, has reference to 
the fact that this particular cone, instead of being the parent of other big trees, 
is doomed to live as a specimen upon his study table " under ink-drops idly 
scattered : " 

" Not thine alone the germs that fail 
The purpose of their high creation, 
If their poor tenements avail 

For worldly show and ostentation." 

Aunt Harriet : I suppose the poet would suggest to us that real practical use 
or progress is inconsistent with mere "worldly show and ostentation." 



TJie Yosemite. 



19 



Mr. Goldust: If a man or a woman gives up days and evenings to fashion and 
frivolity, old age, if it comes at all, will find him a mere husk. 
The club cheered this proposition. 

The President : I think you may now proceed, Mr. Cyril, with your narrative. 
Gvril: You all know, I presume, that the Yosemite Valley, and the Mariposa 




THE CATHEDRAL. 



grove, like certain other attractive parts of this country, have been set aside by 
sundry special Acts of Congress or State Legislation, as national parks. The 
Yosemite Valley is a rift or gorge in the Sierras, possessing singularly grand and 
imposing features, some of which are likely to puzzle geologists for some time to 
come. It is abou. eight miles long,, by about a mile broad, of irregular shape, but 



20 



Picturesque Tours iu Ainerica. 



hemmed in through its entire length by lofty granite hills, nearly vertical. The 
river Merced runs through the valley, with tributaries flowing into it from both 

-_-„-:s^— ^-g ^w sides, and constituting the 
"S pSg various waterfalls, to some 
^ of which reference has been 
made. The floor of the 
valley is about 4,000 feet 
above the level of the sea, 
and the hills tower up from 
2,000 to 6,000 feet above 
the plain. The valley 
itself is richly wooded, and 
in summer is carpeted with 
grass and wild flowers. 
The latest suggestion as to 
its formation is that it was 
caused by a sudden depres- 
sion of the earth's surface 
— a caprice of nature. No 
other theory, like that, for 
instance, of aqueous 
erosion, or fissure, or glacial 
action, can, it is thought, 
explain the almost total 
absence of debris at the 
foot of the hills. Occa- 
sionally there are rock 
avalanches, when great por- 
tions of granite are detached 
and fall with a thundering 
crash to the plains; but 
there is every reason to 
believe that where they have fallen they remain to this day, which would not have 




THE SENTINEL KOCK. 



The \ ^oseim'fd. 



21 



been the case had there been any glacial disturbance, or the rushing of a vast 
body of water for centuries through this gorge. Do I put this correctly, Mr. 
President ? 

The President : Yes. It is supposed by many that the gorge was at one time 
a lake, and that it has been gradually filled to its present level by the falling 
masses from above. 

Mr. Goldust : How long will it take to fill it up by this means ? 

The President : We cannot tell what sudden changes may happen to hasten 




THE iNoKTlI AND SOUTH DOMES. 



the comparatively slow action of climate, storm, and gravitation-; but we might 
safely put it at thousands of years. 

Mr. Goldust : Then there will be a chance for all the club to visit the place yet. 

Cyril: One of the most prominent objects in the valley (we are going north) 
is a group called Cathedral Rocks, about 2,660 feet high, and from some points of 
view presenting a church-like and very imposing appearance. Above this is the 
Sentinel Rock, a weird and solitary peak, or rather group, 4,500 feet high. 

Below the Yosemite Falls are the mighty North and South Domes, the latter 
of which has hitherto defied all attempts made by travelers to climb it. The 



22 



Pictuyesqne Tours in America. 



sketch of rocks and bowlders gives an idea of some portions of the valley along the 
course of the Merced, not far from the base of the South Dome, and it illustrates 
the President's remark about the rock avalanches. Another sketch gives us a 
nearer view of the South Dome. 

The President : We have not heard yet about the discovery of this valley. 




ROCKS AND BOWLDERS IN THE VALLEY. 



Cyril: I had forgotten to say that in 1851 an expedition was organized by the 
miners in the Sierras and Foot Hills, to pursue and punish the Indians for various 
outrages they had perpetrated upon the whites. The Indians fled to their 
fastnesses, and, amongst other hiding places, this one was discovered, and the 
unfortunate Red Men were attacked, and great numbers slaughtered in this very 



The Yoscniife. 



23 



spot. A few years later, tourists began to visit it, and in 1856 the first hotel or 
ranch was built there. The name is Indian, of course, and signifies " grizzly 
bear." The Indians in California now give little or no trouble to the whites. 
The tourist meets with them occasionally, but they are harmless. In the Yosemite 
region they are known as Digger Indians. 

Mr. Goldust : How did you get out of the valley ? Did you take all your 
party up the precipice at the Vernal Falls, or return by the way you entered ? 




THE SOUTH DOME. 



Cyril: There is a rugged and steep way out in a northerly direction. Some 
tourists, indeed, enter from this direction. As you ascend from the valley, the air 
grows perceptibly cooler. In fact, the whole region is subject to sudden changes of 
temperature, and to severe storms. Cool nights and hot days alternate with each 
other. Our party got thoroughly drenched in a rain storm on the road to Coulter- 
ville ; but, after we had proceeded a few miles, our clothing dried upon us, and we 
thought no more of it. Some carriages were waiting for us at the first point in 



24 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



the road available for wheels, and some of our party gladly changed their method 
of locomotion, though I do not think they gained much by it, as the roads are 




FRIENDLY INDIAN. 



not smooth by any means, and in some places the driver has to proceed very 



The Yosejmte 



25 



warily, or he would upset his party into some deep ravine or abyss. Coulterville is 
a small mining town, and the tourist will be in no humor to remain there longer 
than necessary to recover from his fatigue. From Coulterville we drove some 
forty miles down the rugged slope, into the plains, to the line of the railroad, and 
so on the following day reached San Francisco. 

Aunt Harriet : I have been very lately reading a description of the Yosemite 
Valley by Dr. Russell, one of a party accompanying the Duke of Sutherland last 
June in a rapid tour through the States and Canada. A friend of mine in London 
sent me a copy of the work.* Dr. Russell says: "The peculiar and unique 
feature of the valley seems to me to be the height and boldness of the cliffs, which 
spring out from the mountain sides like seiitinels to watch and ward over the 
secrets of the gorge. Next to that is the number and height of the waterfalls ; but 
it is only by degrees and by comparison that the mind takes in the fact that the 
cliffs are not hundreds but thousands of feet hicjh — that these bright, flashing, 
fleecy cataracts fall for thousands of feet." He adds : " What is the use of rolling 
off a catalogue of names and figures ? Even the brush of the painter, charged 
with the truest colors and guided by the finest hand and eye, could never do 
justice to these cliffs and waterfalls." 

Cyril : I had almost forgotten to say that the Duke of Sutherland and his 
party preceded us by only two or three weeks. We heard a great deal about them 
from the guides and others. It appears that some of the party, including the 
Duke himself, were very much amused by a guide calling upon the Duke to help 
him water the horses. " Here, Mister Sutherland, hold this bucket, please, while 
I pump." There was a good laugh, but the Duke obeyed with alacrity. 

Grace : I rather liked to hear the story. I do not suppose the man meant to 
annoy the Duke, and it was a reminder to him, anyhow, that dukes and lords do 
not grow out here. 

Gilbert : Perhaps that is why our people run after them so much when they 
do come. 

Kate : Well, people cannot help being born heirs to dukes and duchesses. I 
do not know that I should have been so very sorry if I had been a duchess. 

Aunt Harriet : An American girl who is true to herself needs no title to 
proclaim her nobility. 

* An American edition has been published. 



CHAPTER IV. 




CALIFORNIA AND SAN FRANCISCO. 



'HE PRESIDENT called upon Mr. Merriman, who promptly took 
the part of leader of the club for the concluding portion of the 
Californian tour. 

Let me first, he observed, give a general idea of San Francisco. 
It is situated at the northern end of a peninsula thirty miles long 
and about six wide. The city slopes towards the east, facing San 
Francisco Bay, which is between thirty and forty miles long, and from seven to 
twelve miles wide. The entrance to this bay from the Pacific Ocean is through the 
Golden Gate a strait, five miles long and a mile wide. The shores of the Golden 
Gate are picturesque, the northern being lined with lofty hills. The bar has 
thirty feet of water at low tide, and the bay has safe anchorage for ships of 
any size. 

In 1846, San Francisco was a mere fishing-hamlet. Gold was discovered in 
1848, and in less than four years the city had a population of 35,000. It now 
numbers at least a quarter of a m.illion. 

On the eastern shore of the bay, opposite San Francisco, is the city of Oakland, 
bearing a somewhat similar relation to it that Brooklyn does to New York, only 
that Oakland is relatively more fashionable, and is even more thoroughly a resi- 
dential city and suburb than Brooklyn. 

The ferryboats plying between these two cities are mammoth boats, with 
immense saloons above the deck. The distance is seven miles. 

It gives one a strange feeling to walk the busy and beautiful streets of San 
Francisco and Oakland, and to think that all this has sprung up in far less than an 
average life-time. There must be many men now living who can look back to the 
timfe when it was an unpretentious hamlet, and when no one dreamed of the future 
before it. 

26 



California and San Francisco. 



27 



During the early years of the city, things proceeded after a very lawless fashion. 
The people who flocked to it were influenced by only one motive, and that a 
powerful one — the thirst for gold. There was no strong government to restrain the 
unruly and punish crime. At length the inhabitants formed a Vigilance Com- 
mittee, which soon became " a terror to evil doers," even if not " a praise to those 
who did well." Its decisions were prompt, and its punishments severe, though 
perhaps not always just. It was not until 1855 that the municipal government 




THE BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



and the regular tribunals of justice became strong enough to cope with the situa- 
tion ; but by that time a new element had sprung up in the city — a class of men 
who lived by trade and commerce, as well as by mining, who were in themselves a 
guarantee of good order, and to whom, on the other hand, good order and perma- 
nence in the institutions of government were indispensable. Still the population 
of the city is so heterogeneous, and the rowdy element so strong, that it continues 



28 



Pichtresqtie Tours in America. 



to have its full share of crimes and disturbances, perhaps rather more so in propor- 
tion to its population than the other large western cities. 

I must not, however, be betrayed into giving you a merely statistical narrative. 
Here is a series of sketches which, without any words, would convey a very good 
idea of the Capital of California. 

Dr. Paulus : When I visited San Francisco, I was particularly struck with the 
contrast between its climate and that of the eastern cities of America. It was 
decidedly cooler in the summer months than I have ever known it to be in New 




SAN FRANCISCO, 1049. 

York, and I understand that it is warmer in winter. We found the climate of 
California very variable. 

Mrs. Paulus: Yes, and there seemed to be constant fogs in San Francisco. 

Mr. Merriman : During the summer months the prevailing winds are from the 
northwest, and the cold air current, striking against the coast range, generates a 
Vt^por which accumulates in clouds and mists. But, for all that, the Pacific coast is 
much sought after by invalids. In summer, many people leave San Francisco for 
Oakland, and other points on the main land, which are also considered desirable 



California and San Francisco. 



29 



places for consumptives. I should have said that Oakland is the stopping-place 
of the Central Pacific Railroad. The bay, of which a partial view is given in our 
sketch, is a beautiful sea. On a clear day the view across it from the upper streets 
of San Francisco is singularly fine. 

The streets of San Francisco are very irregular. The plan of the city is 
modeled after that of nearly all other American cities — straight lines and right 
angles, — but the irregularities of the ground are such that a good deal of engineer- 
ing has been called into requisition to preserve even a moderate consistency in 
this arrangement. Steep hills, terraces, and in some places steps, which forbid 




_^-^ 


-.-Li- kP 


£-rH' 


^^mk 




^■^ 




W 








-"■ii 



BIRDS-KVE VIKW OF SAN KKANCISLl), I575. 



carriage access in that direction, are quite common. This is owing to a large part 
of the town being built upon the side of a granite mountain. 

The view of Montgomery street, the Broadway of San Francisco, gives an excel- 
lent idea of this. Here the crowd is more cosmopolitan than even in New York. 
All nationalities are represented, the Chinaman especially being noticeable. They 
are an industrious and thriving people, living in a section of the city by themselves, 
and numbering many thousands. I was amused by reading a description of a 
traveler's adventures in this part of San Francisco : 

" One night," saj's Baron Hiibner, " I was returning to my hotel after an 



30 



Piciuyesqitc Tours in America. 



agreeable visit, and being, as I thought, sure of my way, I refused the escort of 
my host. ' Turn round the Chinese quarter,' was said to me, and off I started. 
But the night was dark ; a damp, penetrating fog added to the obscurity ; and in 
San Francisco, from Germany to China is but a step. All of a sudden I find 
myself in a narrow, dirty street, evidently inhabited by the yellow race. I hurry 
my steps, but in the wrong direction, and here I am in the very midst of the Chinese 
quarter. As far as the thick darkness will allow me to judge, the streets are 
completely deserted. The houses are wrapped in sombre shadow. Here and 
there, red paper lanterns swing from balconies. At every step I stumble against 
the sign board, and hear whispering inside the houses, where the presence of 

a stranger has thus been 
betrayed. In some places 
the darkness is complete, 
and I can only go on by 
feeling. In others, mo- 
mentary and vivid lights 
creep along the woodwork 
of the gilt shop shutters, 
and light up some grotesque 
monster, or the cabalistic red 
and black letters on one of the sign boards. The wind increases in violence : 
driven by the gusts, the clouds and fog sweep down into the street and hide 
even the stones. I pass by an open door ; a feeble light streams from it ; 
I hear the sound of voices and dice ; it is a gambling-house. A man placed as 
sentinel seems glued to the wall. He evidently takes me for a police inspector, 
and rushes in to give the alarm. I hurry on as quickly as I dare over the slippery 
steps. I begin to see at my feet one of the broad cross-streets of the lower town. 
At this very moment, at the corner of a blind alley, 1 am attacked by a band of 
women. These harpies hang on to my clothes, seize me with their horrid, 
bony fingers and nails like birds' claws, and peer at me with faces besmeared with 
white, red, and yellow paint. Fighting my way as best I can, I at last manage to 
rid myself of them, and followed by their screams and imprecations — luckily their 
mutilated feet prevented their running after me — I reach civilization, my face 




NEW CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO. 

letters on one of the sien boards. 




THK CHINESE QUARTER, SAN FRANCISCO. 



32 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



streaming with perspiration, and in half an hour more I arrive safely at my 
hotel." 

Mr. Goldust : The Baron was fortunate to get off so easily. 

Clara: Are all the Chinese people bad and depraved in San Francisco? 

Mr. Goldust : By no manner of means. Some of them are highly reputable 
and wealthy merchants. But as a class the Chinese are dealt rather hardly by, 




MONTGOMERY STRKKT, SAN FRANCISCO. 

and it is no wonder that the more brutish among them retaliate upon the white 
man wherever an opportunity presents itself. Besides, the Chinese quarter in 
San Francisco is under very poor police supervision. 

Mr. Merriman : The picture of the Seal Rocks represents a very curious 
scene which the San Franciscan shows to all his friends. It is a view from the 



34 Picturesque Tours in America. 

Cliff House, a hotel about six miles from the city, connected therewith by a wide 
boulevard. The outlook is towards the Pacific Ocean — and a glorious outlook 
it is. In the foreground are these rocks, upon which the sea-lions or seals make 
their holiday, wriggling and clambering up the sides of the rocks after a fashion 
which partakes of the marvelous. 

The President : It is now time for us to hear something about other portions 
of California. 

Mr. Merriman : With pleasure. Here is a view of the Pacific from the coast 
of Santa Clara county, some forty miles below San Francisco county. The capital 
of this county is San Jose, a thriving city of some fifteen to twenty thousand 
inhabitants. It has some remarkably fine public buildings and parks, and the 
climate of the whole region is mild and equable. As all sea views are very much 
alike, we will now pass into the interior, and I will ask my daughter to describe a 
visit we paid to a silver-mine in Virginia City, Nevada. It is a little beyond the 
confines of California, but near enough to give us a general idea of mining opera- 
tions in this part of the world. 

Clara : Instead of giving you my own description I shall do what will be much 
better, namely, read you a portion of the description of the same journey made 
by a lady who accompanied us, and recently published in Lippincott' s Magazine. 
The writer says : 

" It is a bright, clear day, warm as June in the sun — (it was August) — cold as 
March in the shade, with a brisk, sharp breeze from the bay, blowing the white 
powdery lime-like dust full in one's face ; just such a day, in short, as can be found 
for eight months of the year in San Francisco, when during a morning stroll you 
are sure to meet dusters and ulsters, lace shawls and seal-skin jackets ; the wearers 
apparently utterly oblivious as to what season it really is. * * * The Valejo 
boat is reached, and we steam out into the bay, surrounded, as one generally is in 
every California steamer, train, or stage, by coinmis voyageu7's of a decidedly Jewish 
cast of countenance. Looking back across the rippling, blue water, we catch one 
last glimpse of the town, half shrouded in a soft, golden mist. Farewell, great city 
of contrasts, of the very rich and the very poor ; of the Irish millionaire and the 
Chinese beggar, of the palace and the gambling-hell ; of the breezy hilltop, and 
the low opium-scented valley. 




||:r'4R(tSislBl!'tlli:i::K 



1.4. 



if '■'•'* 



11 



36 Pictitresqite Totirs in America. 

" The sun is setting, and the golden mist which we left hanging over the city 
like a soft bright canopy, is creeping after us when we reach Vallejo, and take our 
places in the train for Virginia City. Our friends, the Israelitish coniniis voyageiirs, 
have dispersed, and in their place we have tall, bearded men, with their wives. 
They are, one and all, without a single exception, talking stocks. 

" Early the next morning we leave the sleeper, and, after depositing our bags 
and shawl straps with the baggage master at Reno, start empty handed for 
Virginia City. During the night we have come through the evergreen Sacramento 
Valley, but now we strike northward, straight up into the Sierras. All vegetation, 
except an occasional patch of yellow tar-weed, is left far below us. The great 
mountain slopes, bare and brown as we near them, but softly purple in the 
distance, and the clear brilliant blue of the summer sky, are all that we see. The 
road, twisting and turning as the ascent grows ever steeper, lies so close along the 
mountain side that at times it seems as if nothing but a miracle could keep us from 
plunging into the valley, many hundred feet below. * * * Now and then we 
rush past deserted villages, where the frail, shell-like wooden shanties are already 
falling into decay. Again, we stop at the station of some small hamlet — city by 
courtesy — perched on the bare hillside, and composed of half a dozen miner's huts, 
an equal number of saloons and billiard-rooms, and the railroad station." 

At last Virginia City is reached, built on the side of a hill, and looking, in 
spite of its large houses, " as if a very slight push would send it reeling into the 
valley." The party, after the usual California lunch of mutton-stew and pork-and- 
beans, proceeded to the mine. 

" Following our guide, we entered a large building filled with rapidly revolving 
wheels of every size, some of which are used to work the elevator running 
constantly up and down the main shaft ; while others move the immense pump 
which forces the cool air from above into the mine. 

" Each of us having been provided with a bundle of rough-looking garments, 
we are ushered into the ladies' dressing room." 

At last the party are properly equipped and begin the descent. 

"At first I can do nothing but grasp my companion's arm. Then comes a 
sensation of floating, but upward, not downward, and it is not until I see by the 
light of the lanterns that we are passing passage after passage cut in the granite 



i 



California and San Francisco. 



37 



walls, and each one lower than the last, that I fully realize the fact that every 
moment is bringing us nearer the center of the earth. Almost before I have 

collected my senses, we stop at the mouth of a large cavern, and I hear W 's 

voice sounding as if many miles away, so deaf have I become by the sudden 
change of atmosphere, at 1,750 feet below Virginia City. 

" From several points run narrow arched passages furnished each with a 




SILVER CUV, NEVADA. 



railway on which the ore-cars are brought to the elevator, and into one of these 
black openings we plunge. On and on, through the heat and darkness, now 
slipping as we step by chance on iron rails, now passing a huge pipe connected 
with the air pump, now standing close against the shining, dripping walls, to let 
pass a low, heavy car loaded with ore, and pushed by a couple of miners ; then 



38 



Picturesque Totirs in America. 



on again, until we come to a small circular cave, the walls composed of heavy 
beams of timber closely packed together, but bent in more than one spot by the 
tremendous pressure from above. Some of the richest ore has been found here ; 
and a little farther on we come upon a group of men at work. There is a small 
pool of water to be crossed by means of a narrow plank, and then, one, two, three 

ladders to be climbed, the heat be- 
coming more intense at every step, 
until we reach a niche-like opening 
where two men are at work — or, 
rather, where one man works for a 
quarter of an hour, while the other 
sits with his arms in a pail of ice-water. 
" The descent of those frightful 
ladders is, if possible, more perilous 
than the ascent. We follow our 
guides up one passage and down 
another, till a heavy curtain, which 
hangs from wall to wall, is pushed 
aside, and a hot blast seems to scorch 
our very bones. From that moment 
each step is one of increasing agony. 
I feel as if the whole seventeen 
hundred and fifty feet of earth above 
me were resting on my chest ; my 
blood, which seems on fire, is driven 
violently to my head, and as each 
fresh wave of heat passes over us I 
gasp painfully for breath. The next 
ten minutes will always be a haunting memory to me. The long, dark passages, 
the burning atmosphere, the scattered lights, the weird figures of the miners, 
appearing only to vanish the next moment in the surrounding gloom, all recur like 
some terrible dream. * * * After thanking our guide, we get on the elevator 
and, warmly enveloped in pea-jackets, return once more to the upper air.' 




TRESTLE BRIDGE NEAR SACRAMENTO CITY. 




TALULOWEHACK CANON, SIERRAS. 



40 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



Albert: The great wealth of Nevada is in its silver mines. The famous 
Comstock lode is partly beneath Virginia City. 

The President: I see that we have a sketch of Silver City, which might be, 
by its looks, the scene of several of Bret Harte's stories — " Smith's Pocket," for 
instance. I know no better way of familiarizing oneself with the peculiarities of 

this wonderful section of our country 
than by reading Bret Harte. Take, 
for instance, his graphic description of 
a snow-bound party in the Sierras in 
" The Outcasts of Poker Flat." This 
is suggested to me by the picture 
before me of Talulowehack Canon. 
Imagine winter setting in suddenly, 
as it always does, in such a scene, and 
a party of outcasts snow-bound at the 
foot of one of those hills. 

Mrs. Merriman: Do you think 
Bret Harte a good writer? 

The President : Decidedly. He 
is not a romance writer, but he is far 
better than that, he is a graphic and 
trustworthy artist. He paints men 
and things as they are, or have been, 
and accordingly his works will in- 
crease in literary value with every 
veneration. 




r^4^"Ss^ 






SNOW-SHED, CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD. 



Mr. Merriman: I would like to 
hear Mr. Goldust give us some infor- 
mation about gold-mining in California. 
Mr. Goldust : I have been so much interested that I ought not to refuse to 
contribute a little to the fund of entertainment. You all know that I have 
lived twenty-five years and more in California. I went there in 1856, a poor man. 
I became interested in gold-mining, and have been rich and poor alternately on an 




A CALIFORNIAN MINER. 



42 Picturesque Tours in America. 

average every three years. Fortunately I have been able to retire at last from 
active business, and unless I become tired of traveling, or doing nothing, shall in 
future carefully avoid all mining speculations, or speculations of any kind. I haye 
been looking at the sketch of a Californian miner, and I can only say that it rern,inds 
me of some of my earlier days. I worked hard I assure you to get my first capital 
out of the dust of the earth. 

Lilian : What are those men doing? 

Mr. Goldust : The man holding the hose is directing two powerful hydraulic 
streams against the rock to loosen the earth and so cause it to wash down the 
sluice. The other man in the picture is shoveling the loosened gravel or earth 
into the sluice, from which, by various mechanical or chemical contrivances, the gold 
is finally extracted. 

The President: It is now time for the club to take its departure from the 
land of the Sierras. I invite you, therefore, to take your places in the train. The 
journey is long and not destitute of interest or of peril. You will be thankful to 
pass in safety over the long trestle bridges across the creeks in the Sacramento 
Valley, and will duly admire the snow-sheds and deep cuttings through which you 
are traveling at the moderate pace of twenty-two miles per hour. 

Grace : I intended to state that there is an interesting article on the Conif- 
erous Forests of the Sierra Nevada in the Century Magazine for last September 
(1881). The writer says that these forests are the noblest and most beautiful on 
earth, though, owing to the shortness of the time which has elapsed since their 
discovery, they are as yet but little known. He asserts that the soils on which the 
forests are growing are in fact glacier moraines, that is, soil deposited by the ice 
glaciers after being crushed and ground from the solid flanks of the mountains. I 
would like to know something more about these glacier moraines, and the action 
of ice in preparing beds for the growth of these immense forests. 

The President : We have not time this evening to go into so large and 
interesting a subject, but it will certainly come before us again, and your curiosity 
may then be gratified. I have read the article you speak of with great inter- 
est, and consider it an excellent contribution to the natural history of this 
region. 

The proceedings of the club then assumed an informal character. 



CHAPTER V. 




THE GREAT AMERICAN BASIN AND UTAH. 



HE second meeting of the J. U. T. C. was held at the house of Dr. 
Paulus. Every member was present, and also several invited 
guests. 

The routine business having been disposed of, the President 
invited Dr. Paulus to conduct the club through its second tour. 

Dr. Paulus : If you look at the map of America, you will find 
on the western portion two lofty mountain chains or systems. One is comparatively 
close to the Pacific Coast, and includes the Coast range and the Sierra, which, though 
separated by an extensive and rich valley, may be regarded for our present purpose 
as one system ; the other is the great Rocky Mountain system, running from the 
extreme north to the peninsula. Between these two mountain systems is a vast 
undulating and broken valley, called by geographers the Great American Basin. 
Kate : A very matter of fact name. 

John : German bach, brook, or place of flowing water : geographically, a dip on 
the surface. 

Dr. Paulus : We are now descending into this Great Basin on its western 
side, hastening down the Sierra's slopes as fast as the railroad people think it 
prudent to draw us. Remember, however, that the Great American Basin, though 
it includes the whole of Nevada, and parts of Utah, Arizona, and California, is far 
surpassed in extent by the basin or valley of the Mississippi, which lies to the east 
of the Rocky Mountains. Indeed, geographers not uncommonly ignore, as it were, 
the Great American Basin, by including all the three mountain systems of which I 
have spoken — the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra, and the Coast range — in one 
grand system, which they speak of as the Rocky Mountains, or Pacific coast range, 
in opposition to the great Appalachian or Eastern mountain system. But for the 
present we have to do with this great valley, and not with the whole of it either. 

43 



44 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



We have some picturesque views here which will help us in some degree to under- 
stand what this valley or basin is like. It is by no means uniform in its features, 
but presents almost infinite variety of physical aspect, and is at present the scene of 
some of the strangest developments in human character and history. 

The President : Will Dr. Paulus mention some of the special geological and 
physical features of this Basin ? 

Dr. Paulus : I presume you refer to the peculiarity that it is what I may term 
self-drained. None of its rivers seem to have any outlet towards the sea. The 
region, however, abounds in lakes, in some of which the water is salt. These lakes 




GREAT AMERICAN DESERT. 



receive the rivers, but in consequence of the little rainfall and the great evapora- 
tion they rarely have any outlet — the Great Salt Lake, for instance ; or, if they 
have, the stream is usually soon absorbed in the earth. 

John : I understand that this region, though comparatively depressed, is an 
elevated plateau, with ranges of hills running through it, generally north and south. 

Dr. Paulus : Yes, and these hills are of a volcanic origin, treeless, and 
rain is gradually washing their substance down into the valleys. But enough of 
these preliminaries. That portion of this Great Basin we are now entering is very 
peculiar, and to the eye unattractive. It is termed the Great American Desert, and 
is applied especially to a tract of land some seventy to one hundred miles square, 



J 



The Great American Basin and Utah. 



45 



though of very irregular outline, and apparently utterly profitless and barren, both 
in an agricultural and mineral sense. In traveling through this region the eye 
sees only bare, brown hills and plains, covered with sand and alkali, with a thin 
growth of sage-bush, and grass. There is no water visible. Special trains con- 
vey this necessary commodity daily to the different stations along the railroad. 
In wet weather the soil becomes like mortar, and traveling, except by the railroad, 
is well nigh impossible. 

Lilian : Does sage grow out in this desert ? I should think that there must 
be good soil in it somewhere. 

The President : It is not the garden sage, nor anything like it. The sage- 
bush is a species of Arte- 
misia, the wormwood 
group of the order Com- 
positce. It seems indige- 
nous to these dry alkaline 
soils, and as it is a shrub- 
by plant, it makes good 
fire-wood in these regions. 

Dr. Paulus : We are 
now entering, if you please, 
the confines of Utah terri- 
tory. 

Grace : The land of 
Blue43eards. 

Dr. Paulus : Most of 
it, unfortunately, is held by the Mormons; but they will not interfere with us, though 
we may have a little to say about them by and by. Here is Corinna, not a Mor- 
mon town, though in Utah. 

Kate : It does not look much of a place. 

Dr. Paulus : No, nor very picturesque ; but it is a specimen of a frontier city, 
and has a large trade with the great mining regions of this great Basin. At 
Ogden City we leave the Union Pacific for the Utah railroad for Salt Lake 
City. But before going there, I wish you to look at some beautiful views 




CORINNA. 



46 



Pictitresqtte Toitrs in America. 



of Utah scenery, after which we shall have something to say about Mor- 

mondom. 
,1 have said that a 
':' - portion of Utah is in the 

Great Basin. But as we 
approach Ogden we get 
nearer glimpses of the lof- 
ty Rocky Mountains ; in 
fact we begrin to ascend 
the slope on the east side 
of the basin. Here the 
railroad track sometimes 
winds along the bottom 
of a wild ravine. " Canons, 
now gloomy and savage, 
then radiant in verdant 
beauty, run up into the 
mountains. Waterfalls 
come tumbling from dizzy 
heights. Huge masses of 
rock, torn and splintered 
into grotesque shapes, 
seem to have been fash- 
ioned by the fantastic ca- 
prices of genii, rather than 
by the unaided operations 
of nature." One of the 
most remarkable of these 
rock formations is known 
as the " Devil's Slide," of 
which we have a view. 
There is a hill, or rather 
Up the side of this, 




THE DEVIL S SLIDE. 



mass of dark red sandstone, some eight hundred feet high. 



P3_ ^ 







48 Picturesque Tours in America. 

from base to summit, runs a stratum of white limestone consisting of a smooth 
floor about fifteen feet wide, on either side of which is a wall varying from ten to 
thirty feet in height. As seen from the railroad it resembles a huge mass of ma- 
sonry, and it is very difficult to discover by what natural agency it has been pro- 
duced. 

Some five years ago a celebrated artist visited some of the most picturesque 
portions of Utah, and painted some remarkably beautiful pictures. Amongst 
other places he sketched was Moore's Lake, of which I am able to give 
you an engraving. This lake is eleven thousand feet above the sea level. It is 
about nine miles in circumference. It lies about sixty miles south of the railroad 
among the Uintah Mountains. The water of this lake, as might be supposed from 
its altitude, is always very cool. It is generally thought that this region has been 
the center of ereat orlacial rivers. Around the shores of Moore's Lake the moun- 
tains rise abruptly to a height of three thousand feet and more, and from the top 
of one of them there is a view on a clear day of over twelve thousand square miles. 
There is abundance of timber and very fine pasturage. The lake evidently gets 
its supply from the melting snows. We are now in the region of canons — 

The President : Pardon me for a moment. Miss Laura, what is the deriva- 
tion of the word canon ? 

Laura : I looked that up, and also the word butte, which is used to describe 
the high, pinnacle-like, isolated peaks common in this western mountain scenery. 
Canon is from the Spanish, pronounced canyon, and signifies originally a tube or 
pipe to carry off water. We use it in this country to designate the deep, mountain, 
rocky rifts or ravines, with precipitous sides, which are so numerous and also so 
grand and beautiful in our mountain regions. 

The President: And "butte?" 

Laura : Butte is from the French, and means a high, bold hill. It is pro- 
nounced, I suppose, as one syllable, and the " u " should be short. 

The President: Thank you. 

Dr. Paulus : One of our illustrations is of Springville Canon, which is in the 
Wahsatch range, directly on the verge of the Great Basin. It certainly gives one 
an idea of loneliness and desolation, though of grandeur likewise. This canon is 
not far from a Mormon town of the same name, on the southeast border of Utah 




COLPtRN 3 BUTTE. 



50 Picturesque Tours in America. 

Lake, a large fresh-water lake flowing into the great Salt Lake. We see here 
plainly the action of the water in cutting this enormous and gloomy rift in the 
mountain side. You can look down upon the little stream from a point fifteen hun- 
dred feet above it. And I understand that this canon is only a specimen of many 
similar ones throughout this grand mountainous region. Laura has spoken of the 
word butte as descriptive of certain hills. Some of these are strange and awful 
monuments. Immense masses of rock, a thousand or two thousand feet high, per- 
haps, sides almost perpendicular, and looking like compact and solid towers of 
masonry built by a Titanic race of men. 

The President : Favor us, Albert, with the key to the word "Titanic." 

Albert : I imagine it refers to the Titans of Greek mythology, a fabled race of 
giants, far back away from any historic period, powerful enough to make war 
against Jupiter. 

The President : Whenever a vast, gloomy, and awe-inspiring object is before 
us it is natural to think of the traditional heathen stories of the freaks of this race 
of giants, hurling mountains at the gods. 

Aunt Harriet : I suppose that in all ages and among all races of men the love 
of die marvelous and the idea of the supernatural have been prominent character- 
istics. And especially do we seem to find everywhere the idea of a rebellious race 
at war with the ruling powers of the universe. I wonder whether the idea of these 
Titans has any affinity as to its origin with Genesis 6 : 4-7. 

The President : It is not improbable, as we see a strange though often a gro- 
tesque and weird likeness to Scripture history in many heathen traditions. I think 
that Frederick Von Schlegel brings out this thought very clearly in his Philosophy 
of History. By universal agreement of ancient traditional sources this world was 
early the scene of a great conflict between opposing moral influences. 

Mr. Goldust : To judge by the frequency of the references to his Satanic Maj- 
esty in the nomenclaLure of the picturesque and grand objects in creation, that per- 
sonage must have had no little influence in this world. There is hardly a square 
mile of mountainous country but has some point named after him. 

The President : In the Golden age of Grecian mythology, man is said to have 
lived in peace and plenty, and In happy communion with the gods ; but this was suc- 
ceeded by a degenerate or Silver age, in which the passions of men became turbulent 




SPKINGVILLE CANON. 



52 Picturesque Tours in America. 

and wicked. Then followed the Brazen age, in which crime and disorder reached its 
highest pitch. This was the age of the Titans, and of their war against the gods, 
which issued in the triumph of the latter. But the Grecian mythology does not 
embrace the idea of an elevation or restoration of mankind. It gives us the Iron 
age as the closing term of human degeneracy, and there it leaves us. The idea of 
malevolent supernatural influences being at work among men, fostering this evil 
spirit of disobedience, and causing grand and awful disturbances in the physical world, 
to the dismay and destruction of mankind, is universal. It has been reserved for 
the Christian system to bring out the truth of a divine fatherhood and rulership of 
love, through whom and through which the devout may find safety 'amid the wreck 
of matter and the crash of worlds.' 

Mr. Merriman : Utah is much more picturesque in its physical features than I 
supposed. 

Dr. Paulus : It is divided into two sections by the Wahsatch Mountains which 
form part of the eastern slope of the Great Basin. The waters which flow west- 
ward find no outlet to the ocean for reasons which I have explained. The 
Wahsatch range is grand and full of features of interest. The Uintah range is 
also very picturesque, with towering peaks covered with perpetual snow. For 
extreme diversity of scenery and climate, this part of the United States is almost 
without parallel. 

Albert : It will be a long time before the Great Basin becomes populous. 

Dr. Paulus : Portions of it will never become so, but it has, as we have seen, 
great mineral wealth locked up within it, and some of it is already finding its outlet. 

Kate : Perhaps the rivers which now sink into it may some day find their way 
out also. 

Dr. Paulus : At Humboldt wells there are about thirty springs, some of which 
have been sounded over 500 yards without touching bottom. As these springs 
rise to the surface it is supposed that they may be the outlet of some vast sub- 
terranean lake. But the surrounding region is most desolate, and, I agree with 
Albert, not likely to attract visitors at present, although it is thought that the 
Humboldt valley might be made productive by irrigation. Being the highway 
between East and West, this valley may become, in the near future, more attractive 
for labor and settlement. 




CHAPTER VI. 



SALT LAKE CITY AND THE MORMONS. 



>R. PAULUS: I have here a series of views of Salt Lake City. This 
place lies, so to speak, on the eastern edge of the Great Basin, at the 
westerly foot of a spur of the Wahsatch Mountains. We approach the 
city from Ogden, by the Utah Central Railroad, which follows the east- 
ern shores of the Great Salt Lake. Salt Lake City is about twelve 
miles from the southern extremity of the lake. The first view shows 
the Wahsatch Mountains to the left or east, so that we are looking south. The 
second view is from a point southeast of the city, and therefore looking northwest, 
with the lake in the background. This is the point from which Brigham Young 
first saw the valley which was to be his future home, and the chief city of his de- 
luded followers. And here I will ask my friend Bertram to relate to us some of 
the particulars which led to that memorable journey of Brigham Young. I know 
that he has been studying the history of this remarkable heresy, and can probably 
furnish the club with a brief summary of the leading incidents. 

Bertram : I will do my best. The founder of the Mormon sect, as everybody 
knows, was Joe Smith, who brought out his book of Mormon in 1830, and in the 
same year organized the Mormon Church. He was an infamous man, notwithstand- 
ing his claims to be the leader of a religious sect ; he tried his hand at banking, and 
cheated his depositors, and was otherwise disreputable. The Mormon Church re- 
moved its headquarters from place to place, being compelled to "move on" by the 
authorities and public sentiment. The irregularities mostly charged against them 
were burning and plundering houses, and secret assassinations. They were a kind 
of Ishmaelitish people, and were suspected of all kinds of crimes and misdeeds. At 
last, I think in 1839, they concentrated to the number of seven or eight thousand 
in Illinois, and built a city which they called Nauvoo, in Hancock County. They 
obtained a charter from the State, which permitted them to organize a little army, 

53 



54 



Piciitresqiie Touys in Amei'ica. 



and Smith became a general, as well as a self-styled prophet and apostle. For a 
time his authority was supreme in Nauvoo, and the Mormon Church increased 
rapidly, but at length his immoralities stirred up a spirit of hatred and revenge 
among his people, and some of them appealed to the State for protection. This 
led to a kind of civil war. Smith and his brother were captured and put in jail at 
Carthage, but the jail was attacked by an infuriated mob, and both were shot dead. 
Of course Mormon affairs were thrown into great confusion, out of which they were 
extricated by Brigham Young, who had been a rising man for some time in the 




SALT LAKE CITY FROM ENSIGN PEAK. 



sect, and now put in a formal claim for the presidency of the Church and was 
chosen to that office. The State very properly revoked the charter of Nauvoo, 
and Young conceived the plan of emigrating to some far off place where the Mor- 
mons would be likely to be undisturbed for a great number of years. .He pros- 
pected around in the vast region of the Rocky Mountains, and at last, in 1847, fixed 
upon the site of a city, and the Mormons, who had been having a hard time of it 
at Nauvoo, flocked thither to a man, and laid the foundations of the city. 

Dr. Paulus : Admirably sketched, Mr. Bertram. And now I will do the Mor- 
mons the justice to say that their emigration or exodus from Illinois to Salt Lake 



56 Picturesque Tours in America. 

was one of the most remarkable events of the kind in the history of the world. 
The distance traveled was 1,500 miles and more. They had to journey in wagons, 
on horseback, on foot, through a region uninhabited and waste. They crossed the 
great prairies, ascended the mountains, penetrated the deserts, and defiled through 
the numerous canons. They endured indescribable hardships, and many died on 
the way ; and even when they reached their journey's end they found no welcome 
awaiting them ; not even the shelter of forests and the luxury of a well-watered 
valley. For years they had to live on the hardest of fare, and often to suffer hun- 
ger, thirst, and cold, without the means of providing sufficiently for their most ne- 
cessary wants. But they had faith in their leader, and at last they conquered the 
desert ; they brought water from the mountain lakes in perpetual streams and 
brooks into their valley ; they built themselves homes, and in fact established them- 
selves as a people and a State. However abhorrent and detestable some of their 
principles and practices are, history will do them the justice of acknowledging the 
magnitude of the deed they accomplished. 

The President : I would suggest, doctor, that you state some of the objection- 
able principles held by the Mormons, so that before we leave this subject we may 
have a fair view of the case as a whole. 

Dr. Paulus : Certainly : and in doing so I would carefully discriminate be- 
tween the mere errors and delusions of Mormon faith, and those principles and prac- 
tices which bring it into unceasing and essential antagonism with Christian civiliza- 
tion. As to the pretended revelations of Joe Smith, and all the mockery and mim- 
icry of the apostleship, the civil state or government has nothing to do with such 
things. It has no right to interfere, for the constitution of this country expressly 
provides for the fullest enjoyment of religious liberty compatible with the general 
laws of morality which the nation as a whole has inherited, and which enter into 
the spirit of the commonwealth. The most conspicuous and obnoxious tenet of 
the Mormon Church is its inculcation of polygamy. 

Albert : Do they not base this upon the practices of the patriarchs ? 

Dr. Paulus : Certainly ; but Christian civilization, as founded on the New 
Testament and the teachings of Jesus Christ, discountenances polygamy, as opposed 
to the highest interests of mankind, and as ruinous to the proper claims and rights 
of womanhood. 



Salt Lake City and the Mormoits. 57 

Clara : Lady Duffus Hardy, in her book " Through Cities and Prairie Lands," 
narrates a conversation with a Mormon railroad conductor on the Salt Lake City 
line, who says that there are many Mormons who never dream of taking more 
than one wife. 

Bertram : And she also says that the women have been trained from child- 
hood to believe that polygamy is right, and that the natural rebellion they feel is 
regarded by them as the voice of the evil one, to be stilled only by prayers and 
self-mortification. 

Mrs. Warlike : I should like to have the makine of laws for Utah for the next 
ten years. I would make it rather hot for these polygamous husbands. 

Dr. Paulus : Another obnoxious principle of the Mormon Church is its claim 
over the consciences and lives of its followers, ordering them to undertake services 
in its behalf, to their peril and danger ; sentencing them to death if their offenses 
come within the range of such extreme penalty ; doing all this, not in open tri- 
bunals and in accordance with the principles of law and order, but secretly, despot- 
ically, in defiance of personal rights and liberties, and often in violation of law. 
Christian civilization has an extreme horror of secret tribunals. It believes in law 
and publicity, and in the rights of conscience and of the individual citizen. These 
two features of the Mormon Church — polygamy and secret irresponsible despotism — 
bring it into direct opposition with the enlightened public sentiment of this coun- 
try and, I may say, of Christendom. 

Col. Warlike : It is a kind of expanded and rampant papacy, with a Jesuitical 
taint of the rankest and most dangerous complexion. 

Dr. Paulus : Undoubtedly. Purify the Mormon Church of these two mala- 
dies, and the nation will not quarrel with them about their eccentricities of belief, 
and they may remain in Utah to all time. As it is, there is a ripple, and perhaps 
more, of public sentiment among the strict Mormons of a new exodus to some 
region even yet beyond the borders of Christian settlement, or possibly to a coun- 
try where their practices may be less repugnant to public sentiment. But it is 
time for us to proceed on our journey, or at any rate to look around us a little in 
this strange place. 

Very different the scenes presented in these pictures to those which greeted 
the eye of Brigham Young and his companions in 1847 — thirty-five years ago. 



58 



Pichiresqtte Tours in America. 



Here we have a very beautiful city, well wooded, richly watered, and bearing all 
manner of fruits in her enclosed orchards and gardens ; with the added charm of 
mountain scenery, and the proximity of a noble inland sea. The city, which is the 
capital of Salt Lake county, as well as of the territory of Utah, is large, populous, 
and beautiful. It is laid out in blocks of six hundred and sixty feet square, sepa- 
rated by streets one hundred and twenty-eight feet wide. Ditches or cuttings run 
through most of the streets, on both sides, filled with water brought from a dis- 
tance. Most of the streets are lined with handsome trees. The houses are generally 
built of adobe, and are of but one story. Some are very large and handsome, and 




THE HAREM ANII THE RESIDENCE OF BRIGHAM YOUNG. 



all have gardens. The public buildings are not numerous, nor very imposing. 
The Tabernacle, with its peculiar dome-like roof, will seat fifteen thousand per- 
sons. Besides this, the Mormons are building an immense temple. There are a 
number of smaller places of Mormon worship, a few " Gentile " churches, banks, 
etc. The most conspicuous private dwelling is the house which Brigham Young 
occupied. It is rather a collection of houses than a house, and is still occupied, in 
part, by his numerous widows and their families. We have also in our collection 
a portrait of Brigham Young as he appeared when nearly seventy years of age — a 
remarkably well preserved man, one would say, though with a cunning expression 
in his countenance, which is far from attractive. 



Salt Lake City mid the Mormons. 



59 



Main Street is the chief business street, as its name implies, and to the visitor 
presents a unique picture. There are no trees on this street, and the houses are 
built close to the sidewalks. The style of architecture of the different houses 
varies considerably, but many of the edifices have considerable claims to notice, 
and are quite worthy of an Eastern city. At times this street is thronged with 
bullock wagons, coaches, and carriages of every description, together with miners, 

Indians, and the residents of the city, 
passing to and fro, or engaged in shop- 
ping. 

John : What is the staple trade or 
industry of Salt Lake City 1 

Dr. Paulus: It is the leading trade 
center of the territory, which is fairly rich 
in mines of lead, silver, copper, and gold. 
There are also coal-mines. A surplus 
of agricultural produce comes to market, 
and there has been a steady advance in 
manufactures. 

Here is a picture of Mormon emi- 
grants on their way to Salt Lake City. 
From the beginning of the settlement, 
Brigham Young relied for recruits chiefly 
upon foreign countries. In England and 
Wales, Australia, and on the continent 
of Europe, the Mormon missionaries 
have for years been busy in the work 
of proselytizing. Scarcely a rural village 
in England, and more particularly in 
Wales, but has been the scene of this kind of preaching ; and many of them have 
yielded converts. These are invariably from the poorest and most ignorant of 
the population, to whom the word-pictures, skillfully drawn, of the paradise await- 
ing them in America, if they will but join their fortunes with the faithful, present 
a vivid contrast with the life of toil and penury to which they seem inevitablv 




BRIGHAM YOUNG. 



6o 



Picturesqiie Tours in America. 



doomed in the land of their birth. These missionaries are skillful in adapting their 
appeals to the varied conditions of their auditors. Their object is to get men and 
women and children. The necessary funds are supplied by the Mormon Church 
■ — the principal use to which the contributions and tithes of the "faithful" are 
devoted. Here is a fine company on their way to the promised land — fathers and 
mothers, young men and young women, boys and girls. You do not see any old 
or decrepit people. They have encamped on a spot which overlooks the valley of 
the Salt Lake, though at a great distance, and with eager, longing hearts they are 
striving to get a glimpse of the blessed place ! Every one has his or her own 




MAIN STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY. 



vision of prospective happiness. All the visions are not alike, but they are all 
tinged with a rosy hue. There is work before them, but there is plenty also, and 
abounding delights and comforts which will be to them a present and palpable 
pledge of the bliss which they will enjoy in the life to come, Mormonism is essen- 
tially materialistic in its views of things. The Mormon idea of God is of a Being 
of flesh and blood. Jesus Christ is His Son. Man has existed from all eternity, 
and the future life, in some other world, will be but a continuance of beings hold- 
ing the same relations as they do here, and similarly constituted. No wonder that 
this group of people is characterized by such an aspect of hopefulness and of joyous 
anticipation as manifests itself on every countenance and in every bodily attitude. 



62 



Pictitresqtie Tours in America. 



I think that the artist has been very skillful in giving this character to the 
picture. 

Arrived at their destination, a convenient camping place is found for them, 
while the bishops and heads of the church go around and ascertain the capabilities 
and the history of each person. Work is found for all. The idea of letting the 
new arrivals drift helplessly along, or entering into a contest for existence without 




WORK AND FAITH. 



MORMONS WORKING AT THE GRANITE FOR THE TEMPLE. 



guidance, is not to be thought of. Unfortunate, indeed, it is, that all this won- 
derful executive talent is at the service and in the cause of so infamous a system 
as that of Mormonism. 

The President : I have often wondered at the superiority of many of the meth- 
ods and plans in furtherance of evil systems over those which are put into operation 
by good men for good purposes. As a rule, the churches of Christendom take no 



Salt Lake City and the Mormons. 



63 



interest whatever in advancing the material interests of their people. They will 
contribute and bestow money in charity, but the general plan is to let men severely 
alone, to struggle in life as best they may, without sympathy or guidance, unless 
they come as paupers for charity, and then they are stamped at once as degraded. 
Why should not Christian churches in America do the work for humanity which 
Mormonism only pretends to do ? Why should a Mormon emigration system suc- 
ceed, while the planting of a Rugby Colony becomes abortive of the good intended ? 
Why should Christian communities sit by in luxury, seeing Christian men contend 
against superior forces, when a little practical sympathy would save many a valu- 




CAMP DOUGLASS. 



able life, and people many a desert region ? It is not only charity for the sick and 
help for the victims of some special calamity, or the care of a few miserable street 
Arabs, that Christianity enjoins upon us ; it is brotherly sympathy of man for men 
— the union of forces against the common enemy. 

Dr. Paulus : I cannot attempt to answer those pertinent questions. The 
subject is one that deserves the most practical thoughts of our wisest men and 
women. Here is a suggestion in the picture " Work and Faith." See how from 
the granitic mountain sides are hewn out the massive stones to be shaped and 
polished for the great Mormon temple. So, from the mountain masses of humanity 



64 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



may be shaped the poHshed stones for the spiritual palace of the skies. Nothing 
can be achieved without toil, but faith is needed to sustain the toiler ; otherwise 
he sinks into the gloom, sooner or later, of utter despair. 

The idea of the Mormon Church is to interest itself (for its own welfare chiefly) 
in every new comer. Work, food, social companionship, are found for all. Money 
is advanced to those who enter upon farming. It is secured by mortgages, and 
becomes often a permanent burden ; but meanwhile there is a visible means of 
support, and poverty, in the sense in which that word is understood in populous 





U/Ua'. 



SALT LAKE. 



communities elsewhere, is unknown. The Mormon farmer may be heavily in debt 
to his church, but somehow he thrives very well and is more than content. 

Gilbert : Suppose a Mormon should be converted back again to Christianity, 
can he get away easily from his new associations ? ^ 

Dr. Paulus : I understand that the conversion of a Mormon is a very rare 
event. They are under a grip which never relaxes its hold. And there are secret 
laws against perverts, which the Church does not hesitate to put into execution, 
so that it is highly dangerous for any one to renounce Mormonism after having 
once embraced it. But, notwithstanding this, I have an idea that Mormonism can- 



Salt Lake City and the Mormons. 65 



not withstand the moral forces which accompany an aggressive Christian civiHza- 
tion. Already a large proportion of the residents of Utah are " gentiles," and if, 
in the progress of settlement, the latter should become the numerical majority, 
Mormonism must gradually change its character or disappear. 

The last picture in this group is of the military camp at Fort Douglass, where 
the United States government maintains a force of soldiers. It was with extreme 
reluctance that the Mormons admitted the risjht of the trovernment to establish 
this fort, but they had finally to submit. Whether with a prompt demonstration 
of military power the Mormon Church could be made to abandon her obnoxious 
tenets and practices is a question upon which the country is deeply agitated at the 
present moment. Many think that the cancer has been allowed to exist too long 
already, and that, like slavery, it will now require a very vigorous application of 
the knife to remove it. There have grown up political complications around 
this question which make it a difficult matter for the Executive to move ; and yet 
it is generally felt that the crisis is near at hand, and that firmness above all things 
is now necessary on the part of the government. But we have not time to discuss 
the Mormon question, and I shall cheerfully give place now to my friend Bertram, 
who is to give us some further light and help over this Rocky Mountain region. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCENERY SOUTH. 




ERTRAM : I shall have to take you away from the overland railroad, 
and invite you to perform some rapid journeys with me, as I lead you 
to some picturesque scenes to the south of the line in the State of 
Colorado. 

c^^'^^f^'^ Before we leave the track, however, look at this view of a railroad 

"^ -J f bridge over one of the creeks or valleys in the Great Basin. The 
eno-ineers of the old world are fairly astonished at the daring of our engineers on 
this side of the world, with whom it often becomes a necessity to accomplish feats 
•which could never enter their heads if they were constructing railroads in countries 
of a less bold physical contour, or with unlimited means at their command. In this 
case, for example, the railroad has to cross a chasm of perhaps a quarter of a mile 
in width, and several hundred feet in depth. No time nor money for elaborate 
masonry ! The thing has to be done quickly, cheaply, and, withal, effectively. 
This leads to a close study of the possibilities of timber, and the result is a bridge 
which, under inspection, is pronounced perfectly safe for travel. Occasionally, of 
course, a collapse takes place, and one hears of engineers rushing their trains at 
full speed across a rickety bridge and seeing it fall to pieces behind them as they 
just reach the opposite side. Whether such a thing has ever really happened, or 
is simply a feat of imagination by story writers, I cannot say ; but we all know that 
not long ago what was thought to be a very solid bridge over the river Tay, in 
Scotland, collapsed suddenly while a train was passing over it, and that train and 
passengers disappeared into the abyss. On the whole, the timber bridges of 
America have stood the test of experience remarkably well, I think. 

Kate : Hiibner says that the last sensation of fear in the journey from the 
Rocky Mountains westward is the peril of passing over the trestle-work bridges 
near Sacramento City. I suppose this remark would apply in general to trestle- 

66 



Rocky Mountain Scenery — South. 



67 




work bridges everywhere. The greater the abyss to be crossed, of course the 
greater the apparent peril. 

Here is a picture giving one a general idea of the comformation of canon 
scenery in Colorado. 

The President: Will some member of the club be good enough to furnish us 
with a few geographical and other pj^n 
points about Colorado ? Perhaps f^^H 
you are prepared to do this, 
Bertram. 

Bertram : I have collected a ^ 
few particulars. Colorado is about 
380 miles east and west, by about 
280 miles north and south, and 
is almost a parallelogram in shape. 
Geographically it may be said to 
have three natural divisions — the 
mountains, the foot-hills, and the 
plains. The mountains intersect 
the territory north and south, and 
have many branches and spurs. 
In the center of this mountain re 
gion, behind the peaks seen from 
Denver, are what are called the 
Parks, a series of immense pictur- 
esque valleys bounded by mountain 
elevations. Of those the principal 
are, the North Park, with an area 
of 2,500 square miles; Middle 

Park, 3,000 square miles ; South Park, 2,200 square miles, and St. Luis Park, nearly 
as large as all the other three put together. There are many other smaller parks 
scattered all through this mountain system. 

Mr. Goldust: These parks would dwarf the noblest of the magnificent parks 
surrounding the palaces of the titled aristocracy of the old world. What scope is 




BRIDGE OVER A CREEK. 



68 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



^ 



there not in these regions for human energy, and what a future may there not be 
for a country so richly gifted ! 

Bertram : Of course, if I were to invite you to a ^yalk or a ride round one of 




CANON SCENERY IN COLORADO. 



these gigantic parks, you might reasonably decline the invitation. Here, however, 
is a little sketch of Middle Park, which gives a good general idea of these "pleas- 
ure grounds of the gods." The foot-hills, averaging 7,000 or 8,000 feet in altitude, 



70 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



lie to the east of the mountains, and slope towards the plains, the latter consisting 
of a series of valleys and ridges traversed by many streams, and with an elevation 
above the sea of about six thousand feet. West of the Rocky Mountains is the 
easterly side of what we understand as the Great Basin. 

The parks are watered by numerous small streams, the head waters of the larger 

rivers. They are most interesting re- 
gions for the geologist, and are full of 
mineral springs of very valuable medicinal 
properties. The climate of Colorado is 
said to be remarkably healthy, with mild 
winters and cool summers. The high 
mountains are, of course, to be excepted. 
The atmosphere also is peculiarly rare, 
mvigorating, and tonic in its quality. 
The pasturage is excellent and capable 
of sustaining vast herds of stock, and 
this industry is progressing very rapidly. 
Another of the remarkable features of 
Colorado scenery is its canons. Some of 
these are within view from the cars of the 
railroad. Here is the Grand canon of the 
Colorado, where the river cuts its way 
through many miles of solid granite, in 
some places 7,000 feet high. 

The Clear Creek cafion is on the 
Colorado Central Railroad. This gorge 
IS so narrow that in many places the tor- 
rent which roars alone the bottom fills 
up the whole space. Often the mountains seem to close in upon its tortuous wind- 
ings, so as to leave no possibility of exit, till by some sudden turn a passage is 
discovered. Far overhead are peaks covered by eternal snows. And yet, 
through this canon the railroad is constructed — a narrow-craugre line, of course — 
following the windings of the ravine, and with the sharpest of sharp curves. 




MIDDLE PARK. 




VIEW OF CLEAR CREEK CANON, COLORADO. 



72 



Picturesque Tonrs in America. 



This road is not, however, built for pleasure purposes merely. It traverses 

a rich mining- district. 




Mr. Goldust : The 
streets of Central City 
are paved with the refuse 
from the gold-mines, and 
as the ore has been only 

^ imperfectly worked they 
may be said to be liter- 

1 ally paved with gold. 

Kate : Is not Lead- 
ville somewhere in this 



region { 

Mr. Goldust: Lead- 

I ville is on the Southern 

[Colorado Railroad, 279 

miles from Denver, and 

the center of the Colorado 

silver-mining district. 

It has sprung up into 
prominence and wealth 
within less than five years, 
(^nly the most recent 
editions of the encyclo- 
paedias contain any refer- 
ence whatever to it, and 
yet to-day it is a stalwart 
young city of some twenty 
thousand inhabitants. It 
IS in the heart of a rich 
silver-mining district, and 

of course lias attracted to itself not only enterprise and capital, but a vast amount 

of the ruffianism and lawlessness of the nation. 



GRAY S PEAK. 



Rocky Momitain Scenery — Sottth. 



73 



Bertram : Here is a pretty view of Gray's Peak from Middle Park. The 
snow-capped mountain in 



the far distance is Gray's 
Peak, and the stream run- 
ning throup'h the center I 
of the picture is the Grand 
River. Gray's Peak is 
14,251 feet above the sea 
level. 

Mrs. Goldust : Is not 
the "Garden of the 
Gods" somewhere in 
Colorado } 

Bertram : Y e s. I 
have not any pictures of 
it but it is the name given 
to a little park or valley 
near Colorado Springs. 
It is about five hundred 
acres in extent, and is shut 
in by mountains on the 
north, west, and east. 
The entrance to it is 
through a narrow defile 
called the Beautiful Gate, 
and it contains some curi- 
ous rocks of red and white 
sandstone, of great height 
and of singular appear- \ 
ance. These, I imagine, 

>< T-1 r^ II' 1 • 1 BOULDER CANON. 

are " I he Gods which 

suggested to some fanciful tourist this strange name. The surroundings are romantic. 
We are not far from the famous Manitou Springs, situated near the base of 




74 



Pictiiresqtie Tours in America. 



Pike's Peak, and much frequented by invalids, especially asthmatics and consump- 

It 



tives. It is about five 
miles from Colorado 
Springs. It is the correct 
thing to ascend Pike's 
Peak from this town, and 
from the summit of this 
mountain, nearly 15,000 
feet above the sea, the 
views are among the 
grandest in the world. 

And now, if you 
please, we will find our 
way to Boulder, a small 
mining town. Near this 
place is a mountain gorge 
called Boulder Canon, 
which we must visit. We 
must go in carriages, as 
the canon is seventeen 
miles long, and the walls 
rise precipitously in some 
places to a height of 3,000 
feet. A stream rushes 
down the canon, crossed 
in many places by the 
wagon road. This canon 
differs from many others 
in that, while jareserving 
almost unrivaled features 
of grandeur, there is an 
entire absence of gloom. The roadside is decked with flowers in the summer 
season, and the eye is refreshed by the infinite variety of rock and dell and ver- 




BOULDER CANON. THE FALLS. 



76 Picturesque Tours in America. 

dant foliage. This place is a great health resort for the people of Denver, who 
stoutly maintain that the Yosemite Valley, Niagara Falls, Delaware Water-gap, and 
European Alpine scenery are tame and commonplace when compared with the 
scenery of Boulder Canon. 

Mr. Merriman : Traveling in Colorado does not seem to be very difficult, 
judging from the quickness with which we manage to transport ourselves from 
place to place. 

Bertram : Of course we are specially privileged, as with us time and distance 
are annihilated and we travel on the wings of the wind. But, as a matter of fact, 
the development of the railroads in Colorado within the pact few years is one of 
the most wonderful features of that wonderful land. They are all narrow-gauge, 
of course, but they seem to laugh at engineering obstacles. They pierce through 
the narrowest ravines and ascend the steepest mountains with an audacity that 
compels admiration. I understand that the civil engineers constructing the narrow- 
gauge lines in Hindostan, sent a representative to inspect the Colorado lines, and 
have followed many of the plans adopted by the latter. 

I have preserved two sketches showing different views of the celebrated 
Boulder Caiion. My last sketch tells its own story. I cannot define the exact 
position of this canon, but it is a vivid picture of many a weary, patient pilgrimage 
through these rocky defiles and mountainous solitudes. Let us wish the travelers 
a safe journey and a prosperous future. 

The time for closing the conversation having now arrived, the proceedings be- 
came informal, and, in due season, the club adjourned, to meet in a week's time at 
the house of Mrs. Victor. 



CHAPTER VIII 




ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND THE YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



'HE third tour, namely, a trip to tlie famous Yellowstone Valley, 
was the subject of a conversation by the Club at the residence of 
Mrs. Victor, who had undertaken the duty of leadership on the 
occasion. 

The preliminary session of business was soon over, and Mrs. 
Victor began as follows : 
I do not know whether to be sorry or glad that it has fallen to my lot to lead 
this Club to the wonderful region of the Yellowstone Park. Lady Duffus Hardy, 
in writing of the Sierras and Pacific Coast mountain region, enthusiastically says : 
" To all those who are in search of health, of novelty, and who are able to enjoy 
the noblest, the grandest, and most varied scenery this world can boast, I would 
say, ' Go westward, across the Rocky Mountains, the glorious Sierras, and sit down 
at the Golden Gate." I would take the liberty of adding — Do not omit the jour- 
ney to the great National Park of the Yellowstone. 

We start, if you please, from Ogden, and travel north to Virginia City — not 
the Virginia City of Nevada, of which we heard on a previous evening, but its 
deserted and forlorn namesake of Montana. Here we provide ourselves, being a 
large party, with guides, mules, and all the necessary paraphernalia of a camp, for 
a long journey is before us. Or we can go by stage to the lower Geyser Basin on 
Madison River — it takes the better part of two days to do this — and make our 
headquarters at a hotel there. We can find there horses, guides, and all necessa- 
ries for our explorations. 

The President : It is an extended picnic, I presume. 

Mrs. Victor: Indeed it is. Remember that the Yellowstone Park is sixty-five 
miles one way by fifty miles another. We have a good deal before us, I assure 
you. I need hardly say that we have chosen the month of August for our trip, as 
the region is now in its full summer glory, and traveling is unimpeded by the 

77 



78 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



snows ; a very important consideration, as we may be detained ten or fifteen days 
sight-seeing in this locaHty. 

As we have to compress this into a single evening on this occasion, I shall not 
go into the minute and hourly details of our journey, but simply take up such 
points of interest as are sketched for us in these beautiful pictures. 

Here is a charming view of Yellowstone Lake, a magnificent sheet of water, of 
varied outline, but averaging say twenty-two miles by about twelve. It is seven 




YELLOWSTONE LAKE. 



thousaad seven hundred and eighty-eight feet above the sea, and the surrounding 
hills rise from three thousand feet to five thousand feet higher. The physical con- 
tour of these hills is very romantic. The lake is deep and the waters clear as crys- 
tal. The guides say that there is excellent salmon trout fishing in its waters. 
Now please remember that this is the highest lake in North America. There is 
only one lake on the whole continent that has a higher elevation. I forget the 
name. 

Clara: I can tell you ; Lake Titicaca, in South America. 

Mrs. Victor : It is glorious to stand on the shores of this lake in its wild solitude, 



I 



Rocky Mountains and the Yellowstone Park. 79 

and think that we are upon the dividing ridge of this great country of ours. Fed by 
the snows and springs of this region, and by the stream of the Upper Yellowstone 
from the south-east, it sends forth from its northern shores the noble Yellowstone 
River, the main tributary of the Missouri, while from the adjacent hills burst forth 
streams which flow westward and southward, and empty themselves in the Califor- 
nia Gulf, or the Pacific Ocean. 

John : Is this lake always smooth and limpid ? 

Mrs. Victor: Towards evening, as the mountain breezes blow upon it, its sur- 
face becomes rough, and like all mountain lakes it is of course subject to occa- 
sional storms. But the general aspect of the lake during the summer is calm and 
peaceful. 

Kate : I wish to ask, at this point, why you enter the valley from the north or 
north-west, instead of from the south ? 

Mrs. Victor: The Yellowstone Valley is walled in on all sides by stupendous 
mountains, and those in lower Wyoming to the south are particularly difficult of 
transit. 

Gilbert : I see smoke to the left in the mid-distance on this picture of the 
lake. 

Mrs. Victor : Probably from forest fires, most of which result from careless- 
ness on the part of travelers. 

Gilbert: Are there Indians in this region? 

Mrs. Victor : Oh yes. There is a large Indian reservation in Wyoming. 
Speaking of Indians, I read in a recent number of Appletoiis Magazine of a 
rather romantic adventure with the Indians in Yellowstone Park. There was a 
party of four, two gentlemen tourists, a guide, and a soldier from Fort Ellis. Sud- 
denly the guide detected a cloud of dust far away to the south, which he said must 
indicate the proximity of Indians. By-and-by the Indians came nearer. The 
rifles were made ready, but as the savages approached they made signs which 
meant peace. They were four in number, and the writer says that four more pic- 
turesque savages could not have been desired to lend romance to the situation. 
One had on a bright blue coat faced with scarlet. All were well armed with rifles. 
They said, in broken English, that they were going to a council up in Montana. 
Subsequently the travelers learned that the tribes of the Utes, to which these 



8o 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



Indians belonged, had just broken out 
into a revolt, massacred an agent and a 
number of soldiers, and were decidedly on 
the war path. 

Mr. Goldust : In this case ignorance 
was perhaps bliss to the travelers. They 
would have been rather uneasy if they 
had known all the facts. 

Mr. Merriman : People do not get 
their daily papers regularly away up in 
these wilds. 

Mrs. Victor : Our next view is of 
the Lower Falls. Their height or rather 
depth is three hundred and sixty feet, 
and they are inexpressibly and grandly 
beautiful. I should say that they are 
situated about fifteen miles from the 
northern extremity of the lake. About a 
quarter of a mile from the Lower Falls 
are the Upper Falls, with a depth of one 
hundred and forty feet ; and just before 
these are a series of beautiful rapids. 
We now prepare to enter the Grand 
anon, an immense chasm or cleft, with its walls from 
^a thousand to fifteen hundred feet high, from which 
the river seems to wind along at the bottom like a 
silver thread. We have a picture here showing a por- 
tion of this canon, with the Lower Falls in the distance. 
The Grand Canon is twenty miles in length, so that 
you see we have a long task before us to explore it. 
And here I would ask the Professor to favor us with 
some information about the geological features of this 
wonderful gorge. 




THE LOWER FALLS. 



Rocky Mountains and the Yellowstone Park. 



8i 



The President : I have never visited the Yellowstone Valley, and am not a 




CUFFS IN THE GRAND CANON. 



professional geologist, and cannot, therefore, offer you any original views on the 

6 



82 Picturesque Tours in America. 



subject ; but from all I have read about it, including the reports of Professor Hay- 
den, the government surveyor, and others, there seems to be no doubt that this 
wonderful region has been the scene both of volcanic and glacial action of a 
remarkable kind. The volcanic forces are evident to this day to the most casual 
observer in the immense collections of hot springs, and the powerful geysers 
which form some of the principal objects of interest, and about which, I suppose, 
we shall hear something from Mrs. Victor by-and-by. The solid rocks them- 
selves are also, many of them, of a volcanic nature, consisting of lava which has 
been belched forth age after age. Ridges of basaltic rocks have been cut through 
by the rapid streams. There can be no doubting this testimony, and other evi- 
dences furnished by the rocks, which are eloquent and truthful witnesses to the 
earnest and laborious student of nature as to the events of the immense past. 
The very coloring on the sides of the canons, so marked and brilliant, is evidently 
due to the action of water at a boiling temperature ejected from numberless 
springs over the surface and percolating in every direction. 

Kate : Perhaps it was this peculiar coloring of the rocks in this valley that 
gave to it the name of Yellowstone. 

The President : Not unlikely, though I have not met with any authoritative 
explanation upon that point. The action of ice, however, in the canons of the 
whole of this Rocky Mountain region is also clearly traceable. There was a 
period, no doubt, when the temperate zone on this continent was subject to much 
more intense and continued cold than it now experiences. But even to-day the 
present existence of glaciers, or vast moving masses of ice, forcing themselves 
through ravines or gorges, and carrying with them boulders and detritus from 
higher regions, is demonstrated. These canons of the Yellowstone have evidently 
been subjected to this experience. Vast blocks of crystalline rocks are perched 
upon the basaltic strata, ten and fifteen hundred feet from the bottom of the 
gorge. And there are proofs enough in the general arrangement of the mounds 
of detritus on the plains and along the bases of the hills to warrant the inference 
that ice has been the great carrier. 

Dr. Paulus : Do not some geologists think that at one period the whole of 
this northern continent was submerged, and that the distribution of unstratified 
rocks is due to the action of icebergs ? 



Rocky Mountains and the Yellowstone Park. 83 

The President : That was the theory first propounded by Sir Charles Lyell, 
but the study of terrestrial glacial action of late years affords us data sufficient to 
account for the phenomena we are now referring to without calling upon the action 
of water at all. At the same time there are, in other places — for instance, on the 
eastern parts of this continent — very palpable proofs that either during or since 
the deposit of glacial drift the region has been submerged, allowing for the deposit 
of more recent strata, of clays and sands overlying the drift. But we must not 
branch off into this interesting topic. 

Mrs. Victor : I am greatly obliged to you for your explanations. 

Bertram : One word more on this subject of glaciers. I have been trying to 
conceive how the ice gets into these mountain gorges, if, as you say, they were not 
filled with water. 

The President: Oh, yes, I ought to have said that these regions were then, 
of course, regions of perpetual snow. The snow would in time pack the ravines, 
and by simple pressure would be changed into ice. This process is going on in 
the Alps, and in other regions of perpetual snow, at this moment. The whole sub- 
ject of glacial development is one of great interest. 

Laura : Is there a limit to this glacial action on the earth's surface, or is it 
more or less noticeable all over the world ? 

The President : I believe that no traces of diluvium or glacier drift are found 
in the tropical regions. They are seen, however, in the southern hemisphere, 
where, of course, the flow is from the south pole, northward. 

Albert : Are the Colorado canons of the same nature, geologically, as these of 
Wyoming? 

The President : Generally speaking I may say they are ; that is to say, the 
nucleus is granitic or igneous, there has been free volcanic disturbance, and the 
evidences of glacial action to the limits of the temperate zone are abundant. But 
I fear we shall drift away from our topic, if we do not mind. 

Kate : Call it a geological drift. 

John : Never mind, if we get at some boulders of thought or knowledge. 

The President : Mrs. Victor, it is your turn, if you please. 

Mrs. Victor : Then suppose we begin another chapter. 



i 




CHAPTER IX. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, YELLOWSTONE PARK, ETC. 

VY^RS. VICTOR : We will now leave the Grand Canon, grateful for 
&t all the suggestions it offers us as to the great changes that are 
V taking place on this globe of ours, and proceed to inspect the 
beautiful Tower Creek Falls. Tower Creek is a small tributary of 
the Yellowstone, flowing through a ravine which, I am sorry to say, 
has a Titanic stamp upon it, in its name — the Devil's den. The falls 
have a height of 156 feet, and the creek at their base runs through a romantic 
glen to the main river. The pictures will describe this better than any words of 
mine. 

And now, after just a peep at the Lower Canon, about which much could be 
said descriptively if we had time, I will proceed to the Geyser districts of the 
Yellowstone. These are classified into two divisions, the calcareous hot springs of 
Gardiner's River at the north of the Park, and the upper and lower geyer basins 
of the Madison River, farther to the south and west of Madison Lake. Here is a 
view of the hot springs on Gardiner's River. The club will look at it while I tell 
them all I know about it. 

CvRiL : The artist has had the good sense to introduce two people — members 
of the J. U. T. C. I suppose — in the foreground. One has a large portfolio under 
his arm. 

Mrs. Victor: You may imagine a river falling over a series of steep rapids — 
down, down it goes, terrace after terrace ; only instead of being simple terraces 
they are hollowed into basins, of different sizes, giving to the terraces a very 
irregular appearance. The water comes from an almost innumerable number of 
hot springs — thousands of them — which form themselves into a stream, and then 
rush over the declivity in the manner shown in the picture. When the water issues 

from the springs it is very hot. It fills the little reservoirs on the terraces, and in 

84 




TOWER CREEK, BELOW THE FALLS. 



86 



Picturesque Tours in America 



each leaves, of course, a residuum of lime or silica. As you look at this cataract 
from a distance, it gives you the idea of an irregular white wall. It looks, indeed, 
like a mass of snow and ice. Columns of steam rise up from it here and there, and 
towards the foot of the declivity the -water becomes cool enough for people to bathe 
in it. Those basins into which the water no loneer flows 
are crumbling away into a calcareous powder ; but where 
the water still flows, the rims of the basins are con- 
stantly replenished with wavy, frill-like borders of all 
kinds of vivid colors. There are evidences of many 




TOWER FALLS AND COLUMN MOUNTAINS. 



■hot springs which have stopped flowing, and it is supposed that there is a gradual 
diminution of the volume of water falling over these terraces. 

Kate : How large are these basins ? 

Mrs. Victor : Averaging perhaps five or six feet in diameter and two or three 
feet in depth. The total depth of the descent is about two hundred feet. There 
are some larger basins on the top of the terrace, one of forty feet in diameter, and 
twenty-five feet deep. The white appearance of the cascade suggested the name of 



<!. 



\. 



The Rocky Motiniains, Yellowstone Park, Etc. 



87 



" White Mountain Hot Springs " to this locality. I believe a good many people 
visit the Parks for the purpose of bathing in these springs for purposes of health. 




Bertram: What 
causes the vivid color- 
ing you speak of on 
the rims of these 
basins ? 

Mrs. Victor: That 
I do not know. 

The President : 
It is due to the chemi- 
cal properties of the 
water and the action 
of the atmosphere. Prof. Hayden says that as the water flows along the val- 
ley it lays down in its course a pavement more beautiful and elaborate in its adorn- 
ment than art has ever yet conceived. The sulphur and the iron, with the green 



HOT SPRINGS. 



88 Picturesque Tours in America. 

microscopic vegetations, tint the whole with an illumination of which no decorative 
painter has ever dreamed. 

Mrs. Victor : But I must now show you the Geysers. 

Kate : What is the origin of that word ? 

Laura : The dictionary will tell you that, Kate. Icelandic, gcysa, to burst forth 
violently. You know that these peculiar fountains were first discovered in Iceland. 
But I would like you to tell me what causes the hot water to burst out of these 
springs. 

Kate : I am afraid I must plead ignorance. 

The President : I think Bertram has been reading on this subject. Perhaps 
he will tell us all about it. 

Bertram : I do not know that I quite understand what little I have read, but 
I suppose that in some way these deep and large springs or underground reser- 
voirs of water become heated — by volcanic heat, whatever that is — and that the 
steam forces itself into the tube connecting them with the surface, where the water 
of course is cooler. The steam is condensed, but the water in the tube increases 
in temperature, and is "raised higher and higher by successive pressures of the steam 
below, until the water in the basin ceases to act as a condenser, and the steam and 
boiling water are forced up through the tube, as they are out of the spout and lid 
of a kettle, until the reservoir is exhausted for the time being — until as we may 
say, the water has all boiled away. Then the springs gradually refill, and the pro- 
cess is repeated. 

The President : Very well explained, I think ; and I may add that the reason 
all the hot springs are not geysers is that they do not all happen to build up by 
their deposits a vertical tube high enough to hold a column of water to keep these 
boiling springs in check«until they have accumulated sufficient force to make a vio- 
lent demonstration. The nature of the soil, therefore, in which these springs occur 
may have something to do with the matter. 

Mrs. Victor : Whatever the cause or theory, the effect is astounding, for a 
district of twenty or thirty square miles is pretty thickly covered with these gey- 
sers, large and small ; and what with the springs themselves boiling and bubbling 
and bursting out in this peculiar way at intervals, together with the weird aspect of 
the ground, covered with silicious and calcareous deposits, and the crater-like 




THE GIANTESS GEYSER. 



90 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



mounds of all sizes, one feels, indeed in a land of marvels. Some of them send up 
volumes of water over two hundred feet in height, and with steam a thousand feet 
high, the irruption lasting several minutes. Here is the Giantess Geyser and 
some others, surprising a party of visitors, who I must say look anything but dig- 
nified. 

Laura : I suppose there is a Giant Geyser, as this is a Giantess. 

Mrs. Victor : Oh yes ! And it has been known to be in irruption for three 
hours at a time, but its volume of water is not so high nor so beautiful as the Giant- 
ess. Then there is the Grand Geyser, the Castle Geyser, the Old Faithful Gey- 




GROTTO GEYSER. 



ser, so called because of the regularity of its outbursts, about once every hour, the 
Turban Geyser, and hosts of others ; making this district of the Yellowstone Park 
the most wonderful in the world for this kind of natural phenomena. Here is a 
small view of the Grotto Geyser with a dome-like crater and numerous apertures. 
The President : Of the Castle Geyser, Professor Hayden writes : " It is the 
most imposing geyser formation in the valley, and receives its name from its resem- 
blance to the ruins of a fortress. The deposited silver has crystallized in immense 
globular masses, like spongiform corals. The mound is forty feet high, and the 



The Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone Park, Etc. 



91 



lower portion rises in steps." Speaking of the prismatic coloring of the water he 
says : " About the middle of the day, when the bright rays descend nearly verti- 
cally, and a slight breeze makes just a ripple on the surface, the colors exceed com- 
parison ; when the surface is calm there is one vast chaos of colors, dancing, as it 
were, like the colors of a kaleidoscope. As seen through this marvelous play of 
colors, the decorations on the sides of the basin are lighted up with a wild, weird 
beauty, which wafts one at once into the land of enchantment : all the brilliant 
feats of fairies and genii in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments are forgotten in 




CASTLE GEYSKR AND FIRE BASIN. 



the actual presence of such marvelous beauty ; life becomes a privilege and a bless- 
ing after one has seen and felt its cunning skill." 

Mrs. Merriman : I think I shall move that when we adjourn for the season 
we do so to meet next August in the Park of the Yellowstone. 

Mrs. Victor : I was going to say that all this volcanic energy so near the 
surface is suggestive of earthquakes, which occasionally take place in this 
region. 

Kate : Then I object. I had rather do my sight-seeing in this way. 

Mr. Goldust : People on the Pacific coast, which is occasionally visited by 
earthquakes, do not dread them more than the people in the Eastern States dread 
thunder-storms, nor do I think they do nearly so much damage. 



92 Picturesque Tottrs m America. 

Aunt Harriet : I sometimes think that it is a mercy we are not left to 
live and die without some evidences of the mighty and awful forces in the 
universe. 

Mrs. Warlike : They make us feel our insignificance and powerlessness, and 
perhaps they turn us in thought towards the great Father for forgiveness and 
mercy. 

Dr. Paulus : And yet man alone of all created things on this globe is gifted 
with the power of scientific research, even as he is with the faculty of discerning 
between good and evil. We can feel the deep significance of the psalmist's 
words : " Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that 
thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels ; and 
hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou makest him to have dominion over 
the works of thy hand ; thou hast put all things under his feet." 

The President : Undoubtedly, man is a creature of mingled strength and weak- 
ness, and if he alone in the universe were capable of rising in thought and feeling 
above the finite, then were his position sad indeed. But if these mighty forces in 
nature are the works of an infinitely wise, holy, and gracious Being, the devout 
and humble-minded have every ground for hope and confidence in the tendency of 
things. As Scripture has been quoted I would again remind you of a passage 
from the Sacred Word, which always speaks eloquently to me, though it occurs in a 
sort of parenthesis (i Cor. 8:5). " For though there be that are called God, whether 
in heaven or on earth ; as there are gods many and lords many ; yet to us there is 
one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him ; and one Lord, 
Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we unto Him." 

Mrs. Victor : I have reached almost the end of my notes and sketches, though 
I confess that I have not exhausted one-quarter of even the imperfect materials at 
my command. But there are many other noteworthy places for us to see, and too 
much time must not be given to any one of them. Here in these vast regions of 
mountain, forest, and desert, we seem to draw very close to the mysterious and aw- 
ful powers of the universe. It is not all mere beauty in these mighty wilds, but 
beauty combined with awe-inspiring grandeur. How appropriate the thought of 
Milton, that much-neglected though always-praised poet, in the lines familiar to 
some of us from childhood : 





THE FALLS OF SNAKE RIVER. 



94 Picturesque Tours in America. 



" These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
Almighty, thine this universal frame, 
Thus wondrous fair ; Thyself how wondrous then ! 
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens 
To us invisible, or dimly seen 
In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare 
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine." 

The President : I think you have another sketch in your portfolio. 

Mrs. Victor : I had almost forgotten. Before we leave this upper Rocky 
Mountain region, or rather while we are upon the wing, I want you to accompany 
me for an aerial trip of a few minutes to a magnificent scene on the Snake River. 
The Shoshone Falls in Idaho are amphitheatrical in appearance. The Snake River 
here runs through a long and deep cafion formed by the action of its waters upon 
basaltic rocks. The falls are nearly a mile in width, and the adjacent rocks seven 
or eight hundred feet high. The descent of the main fall is about 400 feet, and 
below the cataract the sidas of the canon rise to a height of a thousand feet or 
more. Besides the Shoshone Falls there are other fine cataracts. The illustration 
gives a capital view of this weird spot. 




CHAPTER X. 



THE PLAINS AND PRAIRIES. 



I HE Fourth Conversational Tour of the J. U. T. C. was held at the 
house of Colonel Warlike. 

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 
Resolved, That the Secretary write out, at her convenience, and 
from her notes of the conversations, a full report of each meeting, 
and that the same be revised by the President, with a view to pub- 
lication in a book form. 

The conversation was begun by Colonel Warlike. 

I am afraid, said the gallant Colonel, that I am not a very good hand at talk- 
ing ; but if the Club thinks that I can contribute in any way to its entertainment, I 
am willing to do my best. 

Of course, you cannot expect that I can entertain you with many pictures of 
romantic scenery. The prairies and the plains of America do not present many 
striking objects for the artist's pencil ; but in their vast extent they give one an 
idea of immensity from quite a different standpoint from the mountains. The 
prairies were at one time, not so long ago, the frontier lands. They lie between 
Ohio and Michigan, on the east, and the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains, but 
they do not, as you know, comprise the whole of this vast region. The western 
part of Ohio has some prairie lands, so has Michigan towards the south. Indiana, 
Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, the northern part of Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, 
Dakota and Texas, are essentially prairie States ; but the more easterly of these 
are well settled, and cultivated farms have taken the place of the wild lands once 
roamed by the buffalo and the savage Indian. Here is a view of what were once 
rolling prairie lands in Kansas. The scenery is diversified by trees, following the 
course of the river streams, but as you proceed farther west the trees disappear, 
except in the ravines, and on a few bluffs and ridges. Nothing but tall, rank, 

95 



96 



Picturesque Tours iu America. 



prairie grass, waving in the breeze, greets the eye of the traveler, during the sum- 
mer months, for many a day's journey. 

Lilian : I understand that beautiful flowers grow on the prairie. 

Colonel Warlike : Oh yes ; daisies, sunflowers, dandelions, and many others 
commonly to be met with in good dry grass lands, are here in abundance. Of 
course," you have all found out, if you did not know already, that the word prairie 
is French for meadow. American nomenclature is essentially cosmopolitan. The 




VALLEY OF KANSAS RIVER. 



different nations of the Old World send us not only their sons and daughters, but 
also portions of their vocabularies. 

Gilbert : And, of course, we give an enlarged scope for every word we so 
appropriate. Our prairies are very large meadows, indeed, and must have been 
thought so by the early settlers. 

Albert : What is the comparative elevation of prairie lands ? 

The Colonel : I must here refer to the President for information. 



The Plains and Prairies. g'] 

The President : Their altitude varies, of course, very considerably. Lilian, 
you were copying some figures from The American Cyclopaedia. Have you your 
notes with you ? ^ ■ 

Lilian : Yes, papa. " Near Prairie du Chien, in West Wisconsin, the eleva- 
tion of the prairies is about 400 feet above the Mississippi. At Cairo, in South 
Illinois, the upper surface is from 100 to 250 feet above the river, or 400 to 550 
feet above the sea. In the central portion of the State, near the Illinois Central 
Railroad, the average elevation is from 650 feet to 750 feet above the sea, and 
near the northern border of the State this increases to 800 or 900 feet, and some 
of the highest swells of the prairie are 1,000 feet high. In South Wisconsin the 
more elevated portions of the prairie are about 1,100 feet above tide water. In 
Iowa t\\& plak'a2t. die cotcait dcs prairies of Nicollet, dividing the waters of the Mis- 
sissippi from those of the Missouri, is from 1,400 to 1,500 feet above the sea." 
The article goes on to say, of the general character of the prairie surface : " On 
the head waters of the Illinois and Wabash, and south and west of Lake Michigan, 
the prairies are very level and smooth, and are termed flat. Those of other 
regions, where the surface is undulating, and broken by the depressions of the 
streams, are known as rolling prairies." 

Clara : Has any estimate been made of the extent of prairie lands in, say, 
square miles ? 

Mr. Goldust : The Professor will correct me if I am wrone ; but I have some- 
where seen it stated that the prairies east of the Rocky Mountains embrace a ter- 
ritory of a thousand miles square, which would give a million square miles. 

The President : I am not aware that any serious attempt has been made as 
yet to measure the prairies, but the territory embraced in the geographical divisions 
of the continent generally designated as prairie land, and without taking into con- 
sideration the plains west of the Rocky Mountains, cannot be much less than men- 
tioned by Mr. Goldust. 

Grace : Why are there no trees on the prairies ? 

The Colonel : I must again appeal to the President. 

The President : I do not know that the question has ever been quite satisfac- 
torily answered. As a matter of fact some portions of prairie lands are by no 
means utterly destitute of trees. They are met with along some of the streams 



^8 Picturesque Tours in America. 

or bottoms, and occasionally elsewhere. In the settled parts of the prairies 
immense numbers of trees have been planted. In Iowa especially, which is a prai- 
rie State, great attention has been given to this branch of agriculture, and many 
millions of trees now exist and flourish. But, notwithstanding all this, the descrip- 
tion of the prairies as treeless holds good in the main, and the culture of timber 
taxes the ingenuity and tries the patience of those who attempt it. Soil and cli- 
mate, of course, are the two essential conditions one naturally looks to as deter- 
mining the flora of any country. Some think that the soil, and some think that 
the climate is taxable with this peculiarity of the prairie, and probably both have 
something to do with it. In certain parts of England there are extensive tracts of 
downs where you see nothing in the shape of a tree for miles, and yet bordering 
the downs are luxuriant woods and leafy lanes. Take the County of Sussex, for 
example. The ranges of chalk hills to the south, known as the Sussex Downs, and 
on which the finest mutton in the world is fed, are treeless, and they are covered 
-with a peculiarly sweet and nutritious grass and abundance of wild thyme. But 
Sussex, as a whole, is richly wooded. So that climate, here, would seem to have 
less to do with the subject than soil. Some think that the comparatively small 
rainfall over the prairie region is the chief cause of the absence of trees, The 
high ridges and peaks of the Rocky Mountains attract the clouds, leaving the 
plains comparatively rainless ; again, the prevailing westerly winds carry the mois- 
ture rising from the gulf in -an easterly direction, till it strikes the great Appa- 
lachian ranore of the Atlantic coast. We must, however, bear in mind the charac- 
ter of the soil of the prairies, including the surface soil and the underlying strata. 
Professor James Hall, a very high authority, thinks that this alone is sufficient to 
account for the prairies being treeless, the underlying rocks being mostly what is 
known in geology as shale, or consisting of slaty fragments. The surface soil is 
generally rich vegetable mould, from one or two feet deep, in the elevated parts, 
to one or two hundred feet deep in the rich bottom lands. Forest trees would 
seem to delight in a subsoil of a decided character, limestone rock, or well-defined 
clays or gravel. Mere richness of vegetable mould will not sustain oaks, elms, 
pine, or maple. Put both these causes together and we have probably about the 
truth of the matter.* 

Aunt H.-\rriet : If the Colonel Avill allow me, I will read a portion of a letter I 



The Plains and Prairies. 



99 



have seen from a friend of mine who had the courage to settle with her husband 
and daughter in Nebraska. The letter says : " We are about eight miles west of 
the junction of the Sappa and Beaver creeks, on high, rolling prairie land. The 
atmosphere is remarkably clear. We have been able to get wood for firino- and 
for building on the Beaver Creek, which is three miles north of us. On these 
prairies the regulation house is built of sod, and I can assure you is very warm 
and comfortable, as well as neat and good-looking, according to the taste of the 
inmates. They remind me of the houses of the farmers in some parts of Scot- 
land — walls about three feet thick (though in Scotland the material is granite). 
The Indians hunted this re- 
gion, but it is three years since 
the buffalo left, though there 
are plenty of tracks and 
bleached bones. 

" We have had one good 
sight of the mirage of the 
plains, when there appear to 
be splendid lakes, bordered 
by groves of trees, the waves 
rolling as with real water. I 
assure you the illusion is com- 
plete. The only trees here 
are along the courses of the 
rivers ; but as all available land is being rapidly taken, and a good deal of it is in 
timber claims, it will not be long before there will be groves on all hands. There 
are evidences, where the prairie has not been on fire for some time, of young 
timber." 

The President : That susfsfests a third cause to be considered in relation to 
the treeless condition of the prairies — prairie fires ; the long, dry grass of these 
regions being peculiarly susceptible to fires. 

Aunt Harriet: The letter from which I am reading goes on to say: "One 
Sunday, coming from church, we saw a prairie fire, spreading rapidly under press- 
ure of a strong south wind. We felt safe, as there was a good ' fire-break ' all 




BUFFALO HUNTING. 



lOO 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



round our premises — that is, land ploughed, so that there is nothing for the fire 
to catch. But after dinner, to make doubly sure, we started another fire against 
the wind, and then took in the full grandeur of the scene all the evening, and went 
to bed with the waves of fire rolling all round, feeling far more secure than, under 
similar circumstances, we should have done in any city." 

The Colonel : I am much obliged to you, and I am sure the Club is, for 




SIOUX INDIANS. 



furnishing so appropriate a contribution. And now, perhaps, you are expecting 
from me some of my personal experiences in the great prairie region. 

John : Pardon me for interrupting at this point, but I am curious about the 
distinction which is usually drawn between the plains and the prairies. What is 
the difference ? 



The Plains and Prairies. 



lOI 



The Colonel : In a military sense I think that the word plains as distin- 
guished from prairies is that portion of the treeless, or nearly treeless, territory 
east of the Rocky Mountains more or less infested, until quite recently, by preda- 
tory Indians, whereas the prairies are more under cultivation, and free from Indian 
raids. The prairies lie to the east and the plains to the west of, say, the meridian 
of Leavenworth. The farther west you go from this line' the more Indians you 
see, and the more wild and uninclosed the country ; but, of course, the prairies 
are encroaching on the plains all the 
while. 

Mr. Merriman : Civilization is 
" marching on." 

The Colonel : Here are some 
groups of Indians — a party of four 
Sioux, some Utes and others. They 
are dressed in their best clothes, and 
do not look the terrible savages that 
they really are. Contrast their peace- 
ful appearance with the Indian flour- 
ishing a scalp, and you will not won- 
der that they are the dread of front- 
iersmen and their families, and foemen 
.worthy of the steel of the bravest and 
best of our soldiers. Figrhtincr them 
is no mere pastime, I assure you. 

We have heard of the Beaver Creek 
in Nebraska. It is now, I believe, the 
center of a district rapidly filling up ; but the last and only time I passed through 
it was in the spring of 1869. I was then a junior ofiicer in the Seventh Cavalry 
Regiment, of which General Custer was colonel, and our regiment formed part of 
General Hancock's expedition against the Cheyennes and Sioux, who were already 
on the warpath, and had committed many acts of spoilage and murder. Of course 
you will not expect me to give you the details of this expedition. It was my first 
experience with the savages. On one occasion I accompanied a squadron of my 




SNAKE INDIANS FROM UTAH. 



I02 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



regiment as an escort of a train of wagons which our commanding officer had 
dispatched for suppHes to Fort Wallace. We were to halt about midway down 
Beaver Creek, when our squadron was to divide, one company proceeding with the 
escort, and the other scouting up and down Beaver Creek till their return. I 

must, therefore, have been very near the spot from 
which the lady wrote the letter which has been 
I read to us. 

Albert : Did you go with the wagons or re- 
main in Beaver Creek ? 

The Colonel : It fell to my lot to remain at 
Beaver Creek, but on the second mornine after 
the wagon train had left us we were greatly sur- 
prised by the arrival of another full squadron of 
cavalry bearing orders to our captain to join forces 
and proceed with all dispatch towards Fort 
Wallace, distant about fifty miles, until we met 
the returning wagon train, as it was suspected that 
the Indians were intending to attack and capture 
the train. Accordingly we started as soon as 
possible, and fortunately met the train about 
midway. The train, which was escorted by only 
about fifty soldiers, had been attacked by a force 
of several hundred Indians, and had had a sort 
of runninof figrht for hours. Nothino- but excellent 
tactics and judgment could have enabled our men 
to bear the brunt of such an attack, but they did, and killed several Indians, who 
were evidently hoping that our men would exhaust their ammunition, and then all 
would have been over with them. But in the very crisis of the battle the Indian 
scouts saw our troops, far away in the distance, galloping towards the scene, "^nd 
they thought it prudent to retire for the time. 

Cyril : How did the Indians fight ? Did they use rifles? 

The Colonel : They had excellent rifles and fleet ponies as usual. Their plan 
was to circle round the train, firing from the sides of their ponies, at full gallop. 




I04 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



They are wonderful- adepts at this. But our men formed the wagons two abreast, 
with the horses between the columns, one trooper having charge of four horses 
The other men on foot formed a guard round the moving wagons, and, as soon as 
any of the boys could get a shot at an Indian as he flew past, he fired. In this way 

the whole train kept mov- 
ing along while defending 
itself. 

John : Were any of 
our men killed ? 

The Colonel : I think 
; ^^^ ' not in that engagement ; 
but unfortunately a few 
days after, a lieutenant of 
cavalry and ten men, bear- 
' '", v4-v >1^^ ing despatches to our 
/j^-V"S\ \v^ Colonel, were attacked by 
Indians, and after a des- 
perate struggle were mas- 
sacred to a man. We found 
;.^' the bodies brutally dis- 
figured at Beaver Creek, 
and buried them. 

Bertram : Pray go 
^jlx! on. Colonel, with your ad- 
ventures. 

The Colonel : I must 
not do any such thing, or I 
should not know when to stop. I have here a few more illustrations, with which 
I hope you will allow me honorably to retire from my command. Here is a 
portrait of General Philip Sheridan, commander of the department of the Missouri 
during most of my term of service. I need not say that the General has had a most 
eventful and brilliant career as a soldier, and fully deserves the confidence and 
affection in which he is held by both the army and the nation at large. Here is a 




INDIAN WITH SCALP. 




-' -^m. 



THE WAPITI. 



io6 



PicturesQue Tours in America. 



picture showing an interview or great council between Indian chiefs and a Com- 
mission from Washington. It is a good and characteristic sketch of one of these 
famous pow-wows. 

Aunt Harriet : I suppose that the Indian question will never seriously Inter- 
est any but a small proportion of our people ; otherwise we might even yet hope 
to see the Indian department creditably managed. 

Dr. Paulus : I do not despair altogether of the future of the race, although 
there are many gloomy aspects of the question. The Church of Christ is grap- 
pling with the difficulty with more 
earnestness than ever. It is demon- 
strated, beyond doubt, that the Indian 
is capable of civilization, and I am glad 
to see that our government is encourag- 
ing and aiding the establishment of 
schools in the various tribes, with very 
gratifying results. 

Aunt Harriet : I hope it will not 
be long before Indian citizenship will 
be fully recognized. 

Mr. Merriman : I believe that some 
of the wisest and most philanthropic men 
and women of our country are devot- 
ing their lives to the study of this great 
question, and it is devoutly to be hoped 
that the next decade or two will witness 
the dawn of a better state of things — a 
more enlightened and creditable administration of the department, and a greater 
tendency to peaceful pursuits on the part of the Indians. 

The Colonel : I sincerely hope it may, but the Indian is a hard puzzle at best, 
though I admit that he has been used very badly. Miss Laura, you can give us 
some stanzas of Bryant's Soliloquy of an Indian at the burying place of his 
fathers. 

Laura : You mean that piece beginning : 




'^r 



GENERAL SHERIDAN. 



The 'Plains and Prairies. 107 

" It is the spot I came to seek, 

My fathers' ancient burial place, 
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak, 
Withdrew our wasted race." 

It is too long to quote. I remember the verse — 

" They waste us — -ay — like April snow 

In the warm noon, we shrink away ; 
And fast they follow, as we go 

Towards the setting day, 
Till they shall fill the land, and we 
Are driven into the western sea." 

The Colonel : And now to change the topic, and before we leave the plains, 
let me show you a beautiful picture of the famous Wapiti deer {Ccrvus Canadensis), 
native of the Northern States, and found most abundantly on the upper Missouri and 
Yellowstone rivers. Sometimes it is called the elk, though improperly, as the true 
American Elk is what is called the moose {Alces Americanus), found in Maine, 
eastern Canada, Labrador, etc. The Wapiti is by far the nobler-looking animal 
of the two. 



CHAPTER XI. 




MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

'HE next meeting of the J. U. T. C. \vas held at the house of Mr. John 
Smith, and after the transaction of the usual preliminary business^ 
which occupied only a few minutes, the Conversational Tour of the 
evening was begun by the President calling upon Mr. John Smith 
first to lead the club through some of the mountain and river scenery 
of Pennsylvania. 

John {I'eading from MS.) : The Alleghany Mountains form a part of. the 
great Appalachian chain, extending from the St. Lawrence I^iver on the north, to 
Alabama in the south. The general direction of these mountains is from northeast 
to southwest, and they constitute the great easterly ridge of the northern con- 
tinent. 

Sometimes the whole range is generally spoken of by this title " Alleghany," 
the meaning of which is " endless" — Indian origin, of course. The name Appala- 
chian was given to the range by the Spaniards under De Soto, who probably re- 
ceived it from the Indians, but I do not know the meaninof of the word. The total 
length of the Appalachian range is about 1,300 miles, and its mean width about 100 
miles. It comprises several extensive groups of mountains better known by their 
local names, such as the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Adirondacks. 
the Catskills, the Highlands of the Hudson, the Cumberland, the Blue, the Black 
Mountains, etc., and the entire system of lateral hills and spurs of this eastern 
region of the continent. 

The highest peaks of this range are in North Carolina and in New Hampshire. 
In the former State the Black Mountains rise to an elevation of between six and 
seven thousand feet above the sea ; and Mount Washington, in the White Mountains, 
has an altitude of 6,288 feet. 

Geologically this mountain range is highly important. Granitic rocks containing 
veins of magnetic iron ore, limestone rocks, iron and coal of almost limitless ex- 
108 



no 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



tent, together with copper, lead, gold, silver and other mineral strata, abound. In 
some parts of the range rock salt exists in abundance, and in others salt is ob- 
tained by boring artesian wells, and evaporation. 

The surface of these hills is clothed with noble forests, and the valleys are 




THE JUNIATA. 



watered by ever-flowing streams. The scenery is romantic, and in many parts 
full of orrandeur. 

o 

This evening we will visit some of the most beautiful places along the Susque- 



< 




112 Picturesque Toii-fs in America. 

hanna, the Juniata, and the Connemaugh Rivers, in Pennsylvania, in the heart of 
the Pennsylvania Alleghanies. These streams flow through a region of surpassing 
loveliness, well deserving the tribute paid to it by the late Thomas Buchanan 
Read : 

" Fair Pennsylvania ! than thy midland vales, 
Lying 'twixt hills of green, and bound afar 
By billowy mountains rolling in the blue, 
No lovelier landscape meets the traveler's eye." 

The Juniata — the names of all these rivers are Indian in their origin, and some- 
what obscure as to their meaning — takes its rise at the foot of the Alleghany 
Mountains proper, and follows a winding course, in an easterly direction, for over a 
hundred miles to its junction with the Susquehanna, a few miles above Harris- 
burgh. Comparatively few persons are acquainted with this stream. In fact the 
whole of this region is worthy of far more attention than it receives from the 
tourist. 

We will now imagine ourselves, if you please, at the romantic village of Hun- 
tingdon, 203 miles from Philadelphia, on the Harrisburgh and Pittsburgh division 
of the Pennsylvania railroad. This is the capital of the county of the same 
name — a county rich in agricultural produce, and in its stores of minerals, as yet 
hardly touched. Here we get many fine snatches of scenery. 

Here is a very graphic picture showing a railway cut through one of the charac- 
teristic slaty ridges of the country, and giving a beautiful view of the valley and 
adjacent hills. Not far from this is a natural curiosity worth turning aside to see. 
A little tributary of the Juniata, called Arched Spring, flows for one mile under 
ground. Its entrance and its exit are shown in the two accompanying illustrations. 
I do not suppose that any one has been bold enough to follow this little stream 
through this one dark mile of its course, but you see that it comes at last back 
again to the sunlight, and sparkles and rejoices on its destined way. I think that we 
may draw a moral from this, though, in the dignified presence of our honorary mem- 
bers, I almost feel that it is presumptuous to suggest it. 

The President : We trust that the dignity of the honorary members will not 
be so great as to be unduly repressive upon the juniors. Pray let us have your moral. 



Mountain Scenery in Pennsylvania. 



113 



John : Simply this, that dari^ness, trial, and obscurity in a human life must not 
be confounded with failure. If this spring in the mountains never issued forth 
again as a brooklet to be seen and admired, its intrinsic value and, probably, its 




INLBT TO SINKING SPRING. 



uses would be none the less important even in its rocky chambers than they are in 
the light of day. 

Kate : Still I would rather have a little sunlight on my course than be all the 
time in darkness and obscurity. 



114 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



John : No doubt ; and so would we all. And because that is so, we too readily 
despond or misjudge if for a time the sunlight is withdrawn from us, or from our 
neighbor. 

Dr. Paulus : " He that goeth forth and weepeth. bearing precious seed, shall 




OUTLET TO THE SINKING SPRING. 



doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Thank you 
for your moral, John. 

Aunt Harriet : I am reminded of Longfellow's poem, "The Two Rivers": 

" O River of yesterday, with current swift, 
Throueh chasms descending, and soon lost to sight, 
I do not care to follow in their flight, 
The faded leaves, that on thy bosom drift ! 



1 1 6 Picturesque Tours in America. 

O River of to-morrow, I uplift 

Mine eyes and thee I follow, 

* * "' sure to meet the sun, 
And confident that what the future yields 
Will be the right, unless myself be wrong." 

John : We will now descend the river for a few miles till we come to Lewis- 
town. All around us as we journey are charming and picturesque glens, vales, and 
water courses. 

Here the train passes through a narrow defile or gorge called Lewistown Nar- 
rows, suggestive, though on a less magnificent scale, of the canons of the West. 

From this point we will retrace our steps and travel westward for a few score 
miles, taking an air-line, or a bee-line, if you please, to Altoona, a large city of over 
20,000 inhabitants, built up within the past thirty years as the site of the machine 
shops of the Pennsylvania railroad. This city lies at the easterly foot of the Alle- 
ghanies proper, and the surrounding scenery is grand and beautiful beyond ex- 
pression. The railroad here ascends by a very steep grade towards the west, re- 
quiring two engines, whereas trains coming east run down eleven miles without one 
single particle of steam force — a long inclined plane. At the top of the mountain 
there is a tunnel about three-quarters of a mile long, after which the line descends 
the western slope of the Alleghanies towards the Ohio Valley, and so on to 
Chicago and the West. Two or three miles west of the tunnel, and on the di- 
viding ridge of the mountains, is the village of Cresson, celebrated for its mineral 
waters and for its cool, breezy atmosphere during the summer. It is a delightful 
place for a summer's holiday. And now, if you please, we will take a glimpse of 
the scenery in this locality, and farther on in the region of the Connemaugh and 
Kiskiminetas. 

Grace : What delightful Indian names ! I am so glad they have not changed 
them into prosaic modern names. 

John : What do you say then to the title of this picture, " Kettle-Run, Altoona?" 

It is a sketch of a lovely and romantic forest glade, but Altoona sounds to me 
somewhat Dutch-like, and as for Kettle-Run, there is a decidedly Yankee notion in 
that name, or I am very much mistaken. 




KKTTLE-RUN, ALTOONA. 



ii8 Picturesque Totals in America. 



Albert : I suppose Kettle-Run is the name of the brook. 

John : Yes, and so christened from a remarkable hollow surrounded by hills, 
and said to resemble a kettle, through which it flows. There is a curious State law 
which forbids the cutting of timber along this stream, and the consequence is that 
its banks are densely wooded, and the stream itself a good deal obstructed by 
falling trees and moss-grown logs and boulders. 

Our next view is a very fine one of the great " Horseshoe Bend " in the rail- 
road, between, I think, Altoona and Cresson. A great many engineering difficul- 
ties had, of course, to be overcome in the construction of this mountain line. Be- 
fore this road was built the old Portage railroad used to convey the trains by sec- 
tions up and down inclined planes, but now there is no break in the journey, al- 
though at times during the descent, on either side, the traveler cannot avoid a feel- 
ing of apprehension, though fortunately accidents hereabouts are extremely rare, 
owing to the great precautions observed. 

Bertram : Is this the old regular beaten track from east to west ? 

John : I believe it was the direct road taken from the earliest times by the im- 
migrants to Ohio ; that is to say, the route lay along the banks of the Juniata, and 
away over the Alleghanies at this point. The whole of this region and far out 
beyond, among the hills and valleys of Pennsylvania, is peopled largely by the 
Dutch and their descendants — a thrifty, old-time race, keeping their ancestral faith 
and customs, and not permitting the outside world, by reason of the introduction 
of the steam railroad into their hills and valleys, to rob them of their heritage, or 
to seduce them with its vanities. 

Laura : How came it that Pennsylvania has so many people of German and 
Dutch descent in it ? Penn was an. Englishman, at any rate. 

John : I think I must refer to our President for an explanation of that impor- 
tant fact. 

The President : I think it largely due to the fame which this State early ac- 
quired for good government and wise toleration of religious preferences. Penn 
himself was a man of exceeding nobleness and liberality of view. He had the good 
fortune to be strongly backed by the English government, though in many respects 
he was in character the very antipode of the Stuart kings. The colony soon ac- 
quired a reputation for stability, which, combined with the material advantages of 



I20 Picturesqtie Tours in America. 

soil and climate it offered to the settler, and the policy of William Penn to welcome 
good men without respect to race or religion, drew towards it the attention of the 
European nations in an especial manner. The Dutch, however, were really on the 
ground before Penn, and the Swedes even before them ; so that when Penn came 
upon the scene he found a country already in part settled ; at least along the 
course of the Delaware, for a considerable distance. In the first half of the last 
century a strong German Protestant emigration set in, meeting another steady 
stream of Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and giving a decided tone to the 
population of the State. 

Mr. Goldust : That old Portage Road of which mention has been made is an 
interesting relic. I remember traveling over it in 1835. It was a connecting link, 
thirty-five miles long, between Johnstown on the western side of the Alleghanies, 
and Hollidaysburg on their eastern slopes. From Hollidaysburg there was a canal 
to Philadelphia, and from Johnstown there was a canal to Pittsburg. The first 
scheme to make this important link between east and west was by means of a 
canal with locks, but the difficulty and expense seemed insuperable." Then this 
old Portage road was built at a cost of nearly two million dollars. All the bridges 
were of stone ; the rails were imported from England ; and the whole was a solid 
and durable affair. 

Bertram : Was it a steam road ? 

Mr. Goldust : The inclined planes were worked by stationary engines, and the 
level portions of the road by horses at first, but afterwards by locomotives. There 
was a new Portage road built in 1856 without any inclined planes, and with two or 
three long tunnels ; but even this was at last abandoned, or sold to the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company, who laid out and constructed the present track. Both 
of these Portage roads are now in ruins ; the rails have been removed, and much of 
the road beds has been broken away by torrents, or obstructed by fallen trees. 
The tunnels are also unused. 

At this stage travel for this evening was suspended, and the proceedings became 
informal. 



CHAPTER XII. 




THE SUSQUEHANNA AND DELAWARE RIVERS. 

HE. sixth evening was spent at the house of Mr. Goldust, and after 
the transaction of the usual routine business, Miss Laura Smith 
was invited to lead the club in a Conversational Tour through por- 
tions of the Susquehanna and Delaware Valleys. 

Laura (reading from notes): The river Susquehanna, from the 
Indian, signifying "Crooked River," is a noble stream, four hundred 
miles in length, taking its rise from Otsego lake. New York, and emptying itself, 
after a very tortuous course, through highly picturesque scenery, into the Chesa- 
peake Bay, at Havre de Grace. Lake Otsego, with its magnificent hemlock trees, 
which give quite a character to its scenery, is classic region in American litera- 
ture, the novelist J. Fennimore Cooper having made it the scene of many of his 
powerful stories. 

Our party went to Otsego Lake from Albany by the Albany and Susquehanna 
Railroad. We stopped at Cooperstown, and made that village our head-quarters. 
The village is close to the lake on the south. The lake is about 1,200 feet above 
the sea, a beautiful sheet of water, eight or nine miles long, by about a mile broad, 
and set in a cluster of hills. Cooper has made the region very famous, and indeed 
it is a very charming place, and we enjoyed many a delightful sail upon its waters. 
The President : You have probably looked up some facts about Cooper. As 
he is so closely associated with this region we ought to know something about 
him. 

Laura : Yes, I find that James Fennimore Cooper was the son of the founder 
of Cooperstown. His father owned a good deal of the land in this region, which 
was then (1790) on the frontier. Cooper was only a few months old when his 
father moved from Burlington, N. J., to Otsego Lake, and his boyhood was spent 
in this romantic and Indian-trodden region. At sixteen years old he entered the 
navy and served six years. He married in 1811, resigned his commission as lieu- 



122 Picturesque Tours in America. 

tenant, and took up his residence at Mamaroneck, N. Y., where he wrote some of 
his eariier pubHcations. The first work of his which attracted general attention 
was the "Spy," founded on American Revolutionary incidents; then came "The 
Pilot," " The Last of the Mohicans," and other volumes. He went to Europe in 
1827, lived there six years, and wrote several works. On his return, his writings 
took a satirical bias, and he was much criticised by the American press for showing 
up the peculiarities of his countrymen. He settled down into a regular course of 
literary work at Cooperstown, and died of dropsy in 1851. 

The President : What do you consider the chief characteristics of Cooper as 
an author. 

Laura : I am hardly qualified to sit as a critic, but what little I have read of 
Cooper gives me the impression of a wonderfully imaginative faculty, in which 
the results of close and vivid observation serve as the groundwork, and give a 
living interest to his works hardly second to that of Sir Walter Scott. 

Mr. Goldust : 1 have never read a line of Cooper, and always supposed that 
his books were very trashy productions. 

The President : That depends upon the reader to a great extent ; in reading 
fiction a great deal of mental winnowing has to be done, and it is this which makes 
it undesirable to become a great novel reader — the majority of people read for 
mere excitement, or to kill time, and forget what is really valuable as soon as it 
is read. 

Laura : Cooperstown was the home of the novelist after his return from 
Europe, and the neighborhood is full of interest on his account. 

In its course to the Atlantic the Susquehanna passes through a rich and beau- 
tiful country, receiving many tributaries, large and small, in its course. Passing 
into Pennsylvania, it waters the charming and famed Vale of Wyoming, where we 
again tread upon classic, even if we may not say, hallowed ground. 

You are aware that this little valley — some twenty miles long by about three 
broad, and exceed/ngly lovely and peaceful in aspect, nestling between bold and 
rugged hills — was the scene of a fearful massacre during the war of Independence, 
and has been immortalized by the poet Campbell in his poem, Gertrude of Wyo- 
ming. The date of the massacre was July 3d, 1778. This district was then pretty 
well settled by an industrious, farming people. Sir Henry Clinton was commander 



The Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers. 



123 



of the British forces at Philadelphia, and had earned anything but an honorable 
name as a soldier by the countenance he gave to marauding and robbery in the 
name of warfare. Most of the men of Luzerne county, in which Wyoming is sit- 
uated, were away in Washington's army, when an infamous man, an American tory 
named Major Butler, planned a raid from New York State into Pennsylvania, and 
suddenly appeared on the banks of the Susquehanna near Wilkesbarre with six- 




BANKS OK THE SUSIJUEKANNA. 



teen hundred men, half Indians, and half Canadians and British. The inhabitants 
gathered together, and, fortifying an old fort, defended themselves as best they 
could, but at length capitulated, on Butler's assurance that their lives would be 
spared. The instant they surrendered the massacre began, and hundreds of men, 
women, and children were slaughtered. Then the raiders separated into com- 
panies, and pillaged the whole country, driving the few surviving people into the 
mountains and swamps. 



124 Picturesque Tours in America. 

I do not propose to take the Club any farther along the course of this river. 
At Sunbury it receives the waters of its principal tributary, the v/est branch of the 
Susquehanna, itself a goodly stream 200 miles in length. Afterwards it receives 
the Juniata ; and thence flows into Chesapeake Bay. 

We now turn to some points of interest on the Delaware and Schuylkill 
Rivers. 

The Delaware offers many attractions to the landscape-loving tourist, besides 
being a river of great historic renown in the history of this country. Like 
its sister the Susquehanna, it rises in New York State, its beginning being the 
union of two little streams flowing from the Catskill Mountains. For about 
seventy miles of its course it forms the boundary between New York and Penn- 
sylvania, and afterwards it divides Pennsylvania from New Jersey. 

Dr. Paulus : What is the origin of the name ? 

Laura : From the first governor of Virginia, Lord De La Ware, I believe. 

Gilb?:rt : Is there not an Indian tribe of the same name ? 

Laura : Certainly — the Renappi, as they called themselves, but they were 
christened Delawares by the English because their home was on the banks of our 
river. 

The Delaware Water Gap, at the northern extremity of Northampton County, 
and on the line of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, is a defile in 
the Kittatinny or Blue Mountains, with nearly perpendicular rocks 1,200 to 1,600 
feet high on either side. The gorge is about two miles long, and at the southeast end 
the passage is so narrow that the river and the railroad have, so to speak, to crowd 
close together to get through. 

Just above the gap at the north end is a valley called Minnisink — Indian, 
"whence the waters are gone." A great lake once had its waters here, and where 
it has gone to is the mystery which has come down to us in its Indian tradition 
and name. 

This is a lovely spot and is much visited. Of the two mountain barriers, that 
on the New Jersey side has been named Tammany, after an Indian chief ; and I 
suppose that this is the origin of the name assumed by a political party in New 
York city. The other side is named Mt. Minsi, also an Indian name I suppose. 

Mr. Merriman : The illustration shows only one side of the gap — which is it ? 




VIEW OF A SPUR OF THE liLUE MOUNTAINS, DELAWARE WATER GAP, NEW JERSEY. 



126 Picturesque Tours iu Auierica. 

Laura : The New Jersey, or east side — Mount Tammany. It rises up, steep 
and bare, with a frowning, ominous outline. On its summit is a beautiful little 
lake, a mile across. Of course the views are very broad and beautiful from both 
hills, and from many points. And, by the way, there is a " lovers' leap " from one 
of the promontories of Mt. Minsi, and an Indian legend, which I suppose I may [(ive. 

Mr. Merriman : Let us hear it, by all means. 

Laura : Be it known that when the Dutch made their first settlements on the 
Delaware River, calling the place New Netherlands, in the beginning of the se v^en- 
teenth century, a certain Indian maiden named Winona, daughter of the mighty 
chief Wissonoming, fell in love with young Hendrick Van Allen, an officer in one 
of the Dutch expeditions. The young man returned her affection, but unfor- 
tunately the expedition was not successful, and he was ordered home to Holland. 
For some time he wavered between the claims of love and of his country, but 
finally decided in favor of the latter. On informing the poor Indian girl of his de- 
cision, she sprang from his side and flung herself over the precipice. 

Kate : I think he was decidedly mean. 

Laura : Although I have only shown you one illustration of the gap, I would 
have you und«-stand that the vicinity is full of romantic spots, hills, vales, and 
glens, and a summer may be spent very delightfully in this region. 

Passing by the many picturesque spots in the upper Delaware, which tempt us 
to linger, we will now make a rapid stride to the Schuylkill River. 

The President : I think it would interest the club to be reminded of some of the 
historic attractions of the Delaware River, to which you alluded a few minutes ago. 

Laura : I had almost forgotten. I have already spoken of the early Dutch 
settlements. Besides this there were very early settlements from Sweden, and a 
portion of country west of the river was named New Sweden. Eventually all came 
into possession of the English, and, Penn having obtained a grant of Pennsylvania 
from Charles II., an adjustment of the boundaries had to be made, and for a time 
what is now the State of Delaware was part of Pennsylvania. It seceded in 1691 
with the reluctant consent of Penn. 

Gilbert : Why did it secede ? 

Laura : I have not read enough of history to give the full reason, but it was 
dissatisfied with certain acts of the State Assembly and preferred to legislate upon 



The Siisqitelianna and Delaware Rivers. 127 

its own affairs. It was one of the most peaceful acts of secession which the world 
ever witnessed. It was fortunate for the settlers in the lower counties, as they 
were termed, that they had to deal with so peace-loving and honorable a governor 
as Wm. Penn, and that his spirit had been caught by the populations of the whole 
State. Little Delaware was allowed to depart in peace, and grew up to be a thriv- 
ing community. Are you tired of history ? 

The Colonel : By no means ; we cannot do better than make these beautiful 
views assist our memories as to the events with which they are more or less closely 
connected. 

Laura : It was upon the banks of the Delaware, that Penn held his first con- 
ference with the Indian chiefs. The land between the Delaware and Schuylkill 
rivers, where Philadelphia now stands, was owned by three Swedes. Penn pur- 
chased the interest of the owners and laid it out for a city, giving names to some 
of the streets, such as Chestnut, Walnut, etc., which they hold to this day. 

In the war of Independence this river was the scene of many thrilling incidents, 
which cannot all be recounted this evening. You have all seen the picture of 
Washington crossing the Delaware on his march to Trenton. He had been chased 
with his small army through New Jersey by Cornwallis, and had had to cross the 
river as a fugitive. This was at the very darkest hour of American history, when the 
hearts of the tories were rejoicing at the prospect of Washington's utter defeat. 
But Washington rallied and determined on recrossing the river and recapturing 
Trenton. On the night of Christmas, 1776, he accomplished this feat, in the 
piercing winter cold, the wind cutting like knives, and the twenty-five hundred 
faithful soldiers of that little army poorly clad, weary, and faint with fasting. 
They found, as they expected, that the Hessian troops at Trenton were asleep or 
drunk after their Chrismas carousals. This victory was the dawn of better things 
for America, and the Delaware will always be associated with this crisis in her 
affairs. 

You are aware also that the mouth of the Delaware, below its junction with 
the Schuylkill, was the scene of important engagements in October, 1776, between 
the British ships and the American forts, and that Philadelphia was for some time 
the head-quarters of British forces. You have also heard of the battle of German- 
town ; but this brings me to the end of my stock of reminiscences for the present. 



CHAPTER XIII. 




NIAGARA FALLS. . 

HE seventh Conversational Tour of the series was undertaken at the 
house of Mr. Victor, and was commenced (after the usual intro- 
ductory business had been transacted) by Aunt Harriet, who was 
invited to conduct the club to Niagara Falls. 

Aunt Harriet : I do not know but that I have the most diffi- 
cult task of any, for I suppose every member of this club has seen 
" The Falls," and then they have been so often described that it is well nigh im- 
possible to present them in any novel light. But I shall invite you all to take a 
liberal share of responsibility this evening, while I try to be as matter of fact and 
unconventional as possible under the circumstances. 

You are aware that that portion of the St. Lawrence stream which lies between 
Lake Erie and Lake Ontario is called Niagara River, or river of "the thundering 
waters." This river intersects an isthmus thirty-three miles and a half long, divid- 
ing the lakes. As the level of Ontario is 334 feet lower than that of Erie, it is 
evident that the Niagara River must descend very rapidly. This descent is, at the 
present time, classified in three divisions: first, the rapids, which accomplish 52 
feet in less than a mile ; second, the Falls themselves, which have a depth of about 
160 feet ; and third, the river below the falls, which descends about iio feet or 
more, leaving about twelve or fourteen feet for the descent of the river between 
the outlet of Erie and the beginning of the rapids. 

The pouring forth of an immense body of water, the outcome of four mighty 
lakes, draining half a continent, through this channel into the abyss of Ontario, 
gives an effect which, for grandeur and a sense of irresistible power, has no par- 
allel on the face of the earth. We can hardly conceive of the force involved in 
this plunge over the rocks of, say, one hundred millions of tons of water every hour, 
year after year, century after century. The mind cannot at once grasp the 
thought, and it is only after one has sat some time in silence within sight and 
128 




FALLS OF NIAGARA, WEST SIDE. 



130 Picturesque Tours in America. 



sound of the cataract that its inexpressible majesty dominates the senses, and 
brings one helplessly beneath its spell. 

Lilian : I think I felt this most one afternoon when I clambered about half 
way down the steep on the Canadian side, a few hundred yards from the Falls, 
and sat there alone among the rocks for — I do not know how long. I was com- 
pletely fascinated. It seemed as though I were no longer of this world at all. 

Clara : And then the indescribable melody of these mighty waters ! Thun- 
dering is in one sense a very appropriate word, especially to convey the idea one 
gets of Niagara al first, or at some distance ; but as you listen, and listen, the 
most glorious harmony grows out of all this tumult. 

Bertram : That reminds me of an article in a recent number of the Ccntm-y, 
in which the writer, Mr. Eugene Thayer, says, in effect, that he never heard the 
roar of Niagara, but only and always a perfectly constructed and most exquisite 
harmony of musical sounds ; and he elaborates this thought out very ingeniously, 
and as I think very truthfully. » 

Dr. Paulus : You remind me of Thomson's Hymn on the Seasons ; 

" His praise, ye brooks attune — ye trembling rills; 

And let me catch it, as I muse along. 

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound, 
* * * 

Sound His stupendous praise." 

The President : It seems more consistent, certainly, to associate the idea of 
praise with that of harmony than with a discordant roar. The poets in all ages 
have given to inanimate nature this quality of finding expression in musical sounds. 

Aunt Harriet : Here is a view of the Falls from the Canada side, which will 
help us, I think, to understand Lilian's feelings in her solitary musings. 

The Colonel : It looks as though there must be a gradual process of crum- 
bling away going on in the rock formations. What is your idea on that point. 
Professor ? 

The President : There can be no reasonable doubt that the Falls are destined 
to undergo very great and perhaps sudden changes in the future, as they undoubt- 
edly have in the past. The geological formation is highly favorable to change. 



Niagara Falls. 



131 



We have not the old granitic and basaltic rocks of the Yellowstone, and, on the 
other hand, we have an almost immeasurably greater volume of water — less re- 
sisting power and more force. 

Mr. Goldust : What is the 
geological character of the bed 
of Niagara ? 

The President: It is not 
of a uniform character. Pro- 
fessor Hall, the geologist, de- 
scribes the bed of the Falls as 1 
a limestone rock resting on a r 
shaly deposit, which gradually 
wears away, causing the upper |. 
rock, from time to time, to 
crumble into the abyss. Two ' 
miles farther up, towards Erie, the hmc- 
stone gives place to shales and marls 
of the Onondaga Salt group, which of 
course would offer a very slight resist- 
ance to such a force. It may be thousands 
of years, however, before the water wears 
through these two miles of limestone. 

The Colonel : If I understand you 
it is not the actual wear of the limestone rock 
so much as the undermining process in the 
softer shales which underlie it, that is mainly 
instrumental in effecting these changes in the 
river bed. 

The President : Exactly. You see this in this picture of the vertical stairs, 
and also in the Cave of the Winds. It becomes very evident to the senses that the 
lower portion of the rock is hollowing in, so to speak, and it is but a question of 
time for the weight of the superincumbent mass to cause it to yield, a portion at a 
time probably. 




THE VERTICAL STAIRS. 



132 



Pictu'/esqite Tours in America. 





THE AMERICAN FALL. 



Clara : I shall be afraid to go acrain 
into the Cave of the Winds. 

The President : The contingency is 
sufficiently remote to remove the idea of 

any great peril. 

^ Aunt Harriet : It is only 

fe- ^ within the present century that 

jj^= careful observations have been 

#1^'^^ made of the channel, and yet, 

-_i]^f^ since then, various facts have 

a:;^*-- been established. In 1 8x8, large 

portions were detached from the 

crust of the American Fall, and 

in 1828 the same thing occurred 

with the Horse-Shoe Fall. Table 

Rock has entirely disappeared, 

within, I think, twenty years. 

The view of the American Fall 

^^~ shows an accumulation 

^ of detritus and rock at 

the foot, of which 

visitors are availing 

themselves. Further, it 

is said that the rate of 

retrogression of the 

\ falls is about a foot a 

^-' year, and that this fact 

^. ;l^^^^^^^_ is established by obser- 

. #:- -^'^^^^^^^^Si vations made within the 

i'^^k past forty years. 

-^^ft The descent from 

^'p the Canadian side close 

to the Fall is either 







THE HORSE-SHOE FALLS. 



from the tower, 
^ or by steps cut 

in the rock. A 
fee is charged in either 
case, for as yet the 
property on both sides 
of the river is in pri- 
vate hands. Efforts 
have been made by 
both the Canadian and 



134 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



the American government to purchase these private rights, but up to the present 
time these efforts have not been successful, and the visitor is met at every turn by 
a request for money. There is nothing to do but to submit to these exactions with 
all the grace and patience possible, or to be content with such general views as one 
can get. 

I think I have here the most striking picture of the Horse-Shoe Falls I remem- 







OLD SUSPENSION BRIDGE, NIAGARA FALLS. 



ber to have seen. Of course the effect is considerably heightened by the con- 
cealment of the river by the clouds of spray and vapor, but the sublimity of the 
scene is very faithfully depicted. 

In visiting the Falls from the American side one usually first crosses the bridge 



Niagara Falls. 



135 



to Goat Island, which divides the American from the Center Fall, From this bridge 
you get a grand view of the Rapids, and you also see a little island that has been 
made memorable by the rescue from it of a workman who fell into the stream 
while working on the bridge. Fortunately he was borne against this island and 
was taken off, at great risk to his rescuer. From Goat Island we proceed by a 
short foot-bridge to Luna Island and thence by the Biddies stairs to the Cave 
of the Winds, which is immediately below the Center Fall. But I must not 
attempt to lead you through all the sights. I ought to say that the width of the 
American Fall is a thousand feet, and that of the Horse-Shoe Fall two thousand 
two hundred feet, while the depth of water over the Fall is at least twenty feet. 

Gilbert : How did they find that out ? 

Aunt Harriet : By sending a large disused ship, drawing over eighteen feet, 




THE VVHIRLrOOL. 



adrift over the Falls. She cleared the rocks without touching, and plunged over. 

You have, of course, crossed the river at the foot of the Falls in the boat, and 
also walked over the Suspension Bridge, which, with its towers, one on either side 
of the gorge, is worth visiting for the excellent views they offer both of the Falls 
and the surrounding scenery. Another good point is the Railroad Suspension 
Bridge, which has also a carriage and a foot way, and is two miles below the cat- 
aract. A mile farther down the river is the famous whirlpool, preceded by the 
whirlpool rapids. 

Turning now from the physical features of these scenes, of which I have not 



136 Picturesque Tours in America. 

even mentioned one half that are striking, I must refer briefly to some of the his- 
torical characteristics of this vicinity. 

During the war of 181 2 this was a great battle ground. At Queenston, about 
seven miles from the Falls on the Canada side, and directly opposite Lewiston, 
stands a monument to General Brock, who fell there in an engagement between 
the American and British forces on October 11, 181 2. The Canadians point to 
this monument with a great deal of pride, as it not only represents the deeds of a 
brave soldier, but signalizes the repulse of the first and only serious invasion of 
Canadian soil since its unification under the British Crown. 

Cyril : Why do you say serious ? 

Aunt Harriet: Because I can hardly dignify the Fenian invasion of 1866 as 
serious, although in one sense it was so, undoubtedly. It was so utterly chimeri- 
cal, and withal so futile, that it brought the cause which it was intended to 
serve into ridicule, though it succeeded in arousing a thoroughly patriotic and 
military spirit among the Canadians. 

Mr. Merriman : It was a serious scare for the Canadians too. I was in To 
ronto at the time of the Fenian invasion on business, and the excitement there was 
very great. The volunteers met and engaged the Fenian force about ten miles 
from Fort Erie, on the Welland Canal, at a spot called Limeridge, and the result 
was not very decisive on either side. The Canadians were inexperienced soldiers, 
not very well officered, and the Fenians were certainly no better in that respect. 
Several were killed on both sides, and O'Neil, the Fenian leader, thought it pru- 
dent to make his way across the frontier during the following night. Meanwhile 
the Fenians had also planned an elaborate attack on Prescott, with the view of 
marching on to Ottawa the seat of the Dominion government, but by this time 
the American government were aroused to a sense of duty, and nipped the enter- 
prise in the bud. For a long time afterwards Canada was intensely excited over 
this impudent attack. 

Albert : Is not Lundy's Lane in the vicinity of Niagara ? 

Aunt Harriet : Yes, and that also was the scene of an engagement between 
the American and British forces on July 25th, 1814. Lundy's Lane is a very short 
distance from the Falls. On this occasion both sides lost heavily, and both claimed 
the victory, but the British held possession of the field. 



Niagara Falls. 137 



Kate : I am no doubt very ignorant about these matters, but I feel very much 
inclined to ask, vi^ith little Peterkin or his sister — I forget which — 

" Now tell us all about the war 
And what they killed each other for." 

Aunt Harriet: I would like to appeal to our friend John Smith for informa- 
tion. 

John : You compliment me greatly, and I can only say that in my judgment, 
based upon a very moderate amount of historical reading, the war of 181 2 grew 
out of the high-handed way in which the British administration dealt with Ameri- 
can interests, commercial and otherwise, towards the close of the Napoleon-French 
war, when Great Britain was virtually mistress of the seas — fanned as this com- 
plaint undoubtedly was by a preponderance of sympathy with France in America, 
and probably by a desire of the Democratic party, then in power in America, to 
annex Canada to the United States. America had been bullied a good deal by 
Great Britain, and she was spirited enough to resent the insults shown her, and to 
retaliate in kind. 

Dr. Paulus : It is strange how soon Christian nations will drift into war with 
each other for causes which, in the hands of half a dozen impartial and intelligent 
men, could be adjusted, perhaps, in a single day. 

Aunt Harriet : I am very much of the opinion of the Prussian barber about 
whom Dr. Russell in " Hesperothen " tells us, who, in reply to a question which 
seemed to throw a doubt upon his patriotism, said that in his opinion " fighting 
was nonsense " — very disastrous nonsense, no doubt, but still without sense or 
reason to justify it. 

The President : What do you say to that. Colonel ? 

The Colonel : I quite agree with Miss Victor in the main ; but the business 
of the soldier is to fight whenever his country orders him to do so, and not to go 
into any reasons for or against. 

Aunt Harriet: I think we afe getting a little wide of our subject, and as we 
have another and a longer journey to take this evening, I think we must bid fare- 
well to Niagara with all its associations, its beauty, and its sublimity. 

The President : It will interest us, however, if you can furnish us with any 



138 Picturesque Tours in America. 

more historical points. They contribute largely to the value and the delight of our 
excursions. 

Aunt Harriet : Let me see. A little west of Lundy's Lane is Chippewa 
Creek, where, on the 5th of July, 1814, a severe battle was fought between the 
Americans and the British. This time it was the British who got the worst of it, 
being driven into their intrenchments. This was about three weeks before the bat- 
tle of Lundy's Lane. It is but fair to state that the struggle was a very severe 
one, and that before the winter the Americans thought it prudent to retire across 
the river to Buffalo. 

On the south side of the river the towns of Lewiston and of Niagara were both 
scenes of warlike operations. Lewiston was captured and burnt by the British, to- 
gether with Youngstown and Manchester, in the campaign of 181 3 ; while Newark, 
a Canadian town near Fort George, was burnt by the American General McClure 
just before these events. 

In fact, the whole Niagara isthmus was terribly harassed during this war of 
1812-1814. The Indians fought chiefly on the British side, and were valuable and 
powerful allies. 

Gilbert : How did it all end ? 

Aunt Harriet : As far as I can understand, both nations grew heartily sick and 
tired of the war. Commissioners met at Ghent in Belgium in 1814, and, after 
spending some months in negotiations, signed a treaty of peace. In this treaty 
not a word was said about the original causes of offense, and its main provisions 
related simply to some petty matters about boundary lines. 

The President : The war was a disgrace all round. It inflicted untold inju- 
ries upon this country, from which our people long suffered in many ways. At the 
same time it taught England a wholesome lesson. The only parties that came out 
of the war with real credit were the Canadians, who, with the assistance of the 
mother country, kept their territory inviolate, and even profited by the war. Eng- 
land paid her own bills, and also in the main those of Canada. 

Dr. Paulus : Let us hope that the good sense of all parties will prevent any 
such misunderstanding in the future, or that, at any rate, should causes of offense 
arise, they may be settled by honorable conference or arbitration without 
bloodshed. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



LAKE SUPERIOR. 




LBERT : Away, if you please, up to the northern boundary of the 
United States, the south coast line of Lake Superior. If we were 
about to make the tour of the upper lakes, we should probably start 
from Buffalo, and occupy two weeks going and returning ; but on this 
occasion I invite you to undertake a portion only of this tour. 

We can take an aerial flight across the province of Ontario in 
Canada, over a portion of Lake Huron, leaving the great Georgian Bay and Mani- 
toulin Island to our right, and meet the steamer in the St. Mary River, the strait, 
or stream (it is sixty-two miles long), connecting Lakes Superior and Huron. 
We avoid the rapids by going through the ship canal, and soon find ourselves on 
the bosom of this majestic inland sea — the largest body of fresh water in the 
world. Shall I give the dimensions ? 
Kate : Certainly. 

Albert : Lake Superior is 360 miles long, with an average width of eighty- 
five miles. It has a shore line of 1,500 miles, and an area of 32,000 square miles. 
It drains a territory of at least 100,000 square miles, and its bottom is 200 feet 
lower than the level of the ocean. Its depth is about 800 feet in the deepest por- 
tions. These, of course, are guide-book facts ; but they are necessary to know, if 
we would have a fair idea of our subject. 

The scenery around this lake is rocky and picturesque, and there are not a few 
associations connected with it which make it very interesting to the tourist. 

I have three views only for your inspection, but they are of scenes which, on 
more than one account, are peculiarly memorable. They show «is portions of 
what are known as the Pictured Rocks. These rocks extend for about five miles 
along the southern shore at the widest part of the lake, and derive their name 

« 

from the different colors distributed in regular strata or lines upon their seaward 
139 



140 Picturesque Tours in America. 

surface. These bands of brilliant color are produced by the percolation of water 
through the porous sandstone. The water is impregnated with iron and copper, 
and on its exposure to the air conveys a tone or tint to the cliff. The rocks them- 
selves are from one to three hundred feet high, and have been buffeted and beaten 
by the action of the winds and waves into all manner of grotesque and fantastic 
shapes. They descend precipitously into the water, with little or no intervening 
beach, so that to inspect them thoroughly one has to land and take a sail or row 
boat. 

Here we have a view of Grand Chapel rocks, which I see the artist has given us 
with all the surroundings of a thunder-storm. It looks a weird and awful place. 
The roof of the chapel is arched and supported by beautiful columns, and a broken 
column inside has the appearance of a pulpit or altar. The roof is crowned with 
trees and shrubs. 

Speaking of thunder-storms I ought to say that Lake Superior is very subject 
to them, and indeed to storms of all kinds, and that their effect is plainly visible 
along its coasts and headlands. The imagination of the Indians peopled this 
region with all kinds of evil spirits, and made it the scene of violent conflicts. 
Some of the Indian traditions and legends have been gathered skillfully together 
by Longfellow in "The Song of Hiawatha," of which we may perhaps hear some- 
thing by and by from another member of this club. 

Mr. Goldust : It is creditable to the person who invented the names for these 
places that so respectable and pious a title has been selected for the rock we have 
just been looking at. It is a decided change for the better from the Satanic or 
Titanic nomenclature one expects to find in such regions as these. 

Mr. Merriman : We must remember that the region of Lake Superior was 
early visited by Christian missionaries of the Catholic persuasion, and probably 
the circumstance you notice may be due to their early presence on the field. I 
am not a Catholic, but I think there is much to admire, and even to revere, in the 
missions of the Jesuit Fathers to the North American Indians. We have, among 
the many islands of this lake, The Apostles, The St. Ignace, and Pio (or Pius) 
islands. 

Albert : My second view is of a picturesque cascade a little to the west of the 
Chapel. It is a small affair compared with some cataracts we have lately vis- 




GRAND CHAPEL ROCKS. 



142 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



ited, but it is a pleasant object to see and hear in these watery wilds, and we may 
do worse than linger for a while within sound of its ceaseless flow. 

The third view is of what is known as the Great Cave — a very peculiar and 
striking object. It is a huge rectangular mass projecting some distance from the 
line of the cliffs. On the lake side there is a beautiful archway, a hundred and 

fifty feet high, and on the other two 
sides there are small openings. These 
lead to an interior apartment, irregular, 
and strewn with dcbfis, and with smaller 
caverns, or recesses in the walls. The 
whole interior is moss-grown. The 
waves of the lake drive into this cavern 
during storms with mighty force, work- 
incr constant chansfes. 

There are other natural features of 
this group of rocks which are worth 
describing, but I shall not now stop to 
do so, as our visit must be brief. Do 
not forget, if you sail among these rocks 
again, to look out for the Empress of 
the Lake — a profile not noticeable by 
day, but which comes out very clearly 
by moonlight. And now, as I know 
that my aunt has been quietly reading 
Longfellow for the last two or three 
days, I would beg of her to give us 
some idea of those Indian legends 




CASCADE NEAR CHAPEL ROCKS. 



to which I referred a few minutes 



Aunt Harriet: Longfellow's poem 



of Hiawatha is full of them, and some refer to this region, 
read the poem, doubtless. 

Mr. Goldust : I have not. 



You have all, however, 



'Lake Superior. 



H3 



Laura : I tried to read it, but could not make head or tail out of it, it seemed 
so absurd. I suppose I must be very stupid. 

Grace: I just remember that there is a love story in it between Hiawatha and 




THE GREAT CAVE. 



Minnehaha, or Laughing Water, and that they lived very happily together, until 
Minnehaha died one winter of fever or famine, or something. 



I 



\ 

144 Picturesque Tours in America. \ 



Aunt Harriet: If you read the introduction to the poem )ou will be tempted 
to read it through, though some of it may seem at first a tissue of absurdity. 

Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, 
Who have faith in God and Nature ; 
Who believe that in all aees 
Every human heart is human ; 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
For the good they comprehend not ; 
That the feeblest hands, and helpless. 
Groping blindly in the darkness. 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness. 
And are lifted up and strengthened : — 
Listen : 

Dr. Paulus : " In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 
ness is accepted of him." 

The President: Perhaps the chief merit of this poem is the studious fidelity 
to Indian tradition which it indicates, combined with the insight it gives into the 
workings of the human mind in circumstances so different from ours. 

Aunt Harriet : Any one who has read Hiawatha will think of Pau-puk-kee- 
wis and the Gitchie Gumee or Big-Sea-Water, when he visits the Pictured Rocks. 

Then along the sandy margin 
Of the lake, the Big-Sea-Water, 
On he sped with frenzied gestures, 
Staniped upon the sand and tossed it 
Wildly in the air around him ; 
Till the wind became a whirlwind ; 
Till the sand was blown and sifted 
Like great snow drifts o'er the landscape, 
Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes, 
Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo. 



Lake Superior. 145 



The President : There is a strong, though of course grotesque, relationship 
perceptible in some of these traditions with Scripture record. Hiawatha is himself 
of divine origin ; he is the prophet and friend of humanity ; he bears a commission 
to benefit his race. His mission ends when the Black-robed Pale-face comes to 
tell his people of the blessed Saviour. In one of his adventures we have an odd 
resemblance to the experience of Jonah. All this, with the avowed intention of 
the author to reproduce Indian traditions faithfully, makes Hiawatha worthy of 
special study for other reasons than for its delineations of scenery. 

Aunt Harriet : Undoubtedly, and I admire the happy way in which the poet 
manages to depict the more human features of the Indian character, bringing that 
race, so to speak, into the realm of our common brotherhood. But I presume we 
must not travel too far from Lake Superior. 

Mrs. Merriman : There is a poem of Whittier's entitled "On receiving an 
eagle's quill from Lake Superior." To him, the sign speaks of the onward march 
of the American nation : 

The rudiments of empire here 

Are plastic yet and warm ; 
The chaos of a mighty world 

Is rounding into form. 

* -X- -X- «- -X- «- 

Thy symbol be the mountain bird 
Whose glistening quill I hold. 

Albert : And with this symbol before us, reminding us of the distance we are 
from our homes, and the necessity for bold and rapid flight, I will bespeak the 
power of an eagle's pinion for each one of our company for our southward journey, 
and so close our portfolio for this evening. 



CHAPTER XV. 







BOSTON AND THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

V-. 

HEN the J. U. T. C. came together, as arranged, for their eiglath' ^ 
meeting, at the house of Mr. Goldust, every member, as usua^ 
was present ; and, after the transaction of the routine business, 
the conversation was directed to the subject of the tour for the 
evening, namely, Boston and the White Mountains, the President 
taking the part of leader. 
The President: In any conversation or discussion about New England, no 
matter from what standpoint, it would be decidedly improper to leave out 
Boston ; and so, in our wanderings hither and thither among the hills and valleys 
of New England, we shall do well to make Boston our rendezvous and point of 
departure. We can, however, only touch with exceeding brevity upon some of the 
features worthy of notice in that city. The view here given is of that part of 
Boston seen from Bunker Hill in the city of Charlestown, and looking out towards 
the bay. As you know, Boston is built upon an irregularly shaped peninsula, being 
in this respect somewhat akin to New York; but, unlike New York, the city limits 
are not confined to the peninsula, but reach over and include the adjacent lands 
and islands, with which it is connected by free bridges. Old Boston, however, was 
a much more restricted place, the various additions to the city having been made 
by annexation from time to time. 

Bunker Hill monument, from which our view of Boston Is taken, occupies the 
site of an old redoubt on Breed's Hill, famous in the annals of the War of Inde- 
pendence. It Is a square column tapering towards the top, with a spiral staircase 
Inside, and a small room just below the apex, from which a fine view Is afforded. 
Perhaps we ought to pause here for an instant for a brief talk about the events of 
the stirring times commemorated by this simple but yet grand stone pile. 

Dr. Paulus : As Americans we cannot but feel proud of the historic assocla- 
146 



14.8 Picturesque Tours in America. 



tlons of this spot. Here was fought out one of the sublimest conflicts that the world 
has ever seen. Of course, Boston had not all the struggle to herself, by any means ; 
but she occupied a most conspicuous position in the history of that eventful period. 

The President : Let us try to realize something of the position of things on 
June 17, 1775. The American army, with their headquarters at Cambridge, under 
General Ward, at this time surrounded Boston, and the British, under General 
Gage, were cooped up In the city, with free access, of course, to the ocean. On 
the one hand, the Americans were bent on driving the British into the sea ; and on 
the other, the British were determined to force back the Americans from their 
too close proximity. The British troops were well quartered, had abimdant sup- 
plies, and were a fine, well-disciplined body of men. The Americans were raw 
militia, most of them fresh from their farms, with such weapons as they could com- 
mand, and very moderately supplied with ammunition ; but every man was fired 
with enthusiasm, and could be relied on to the last emergency. 

Looking back across the century and recalling the memorable struggle of that 
bright June day, there mingles in my mind a feeling of sadness, with the natural 
emotion of joy at the ultimate triumph of the cause of liberty. Behind that double 
row of rail fences, stuffed with the new-mown hay from the Charlestown fields, were 
the descendants of men who by patient toil, by suffering and hardship, through 
blood and tears and fire and famine, had created a paradise out of a howling 
wilderness, and had handed it to their sons— a heritage of Industry and virtue. 
A stupid king thousands of miles off, surrounded by proud and foolish nobles, 
instead of treating this bright and fair offshoot from England with the justness 
and frankness which it deserved, must needs set to work, inspired by senseless 
counsels, to harass and pinch and vex the new colony with unjust, meddlesome, 
and despotic laws. The patient toilers over the seas stood this as long as they 
could ; but human patience has its limits, and it was absurd for George the Third 
to imagine that men who had sprung from such stock, and had such a record as 
the inhabitants of the American colonies, were going to be ruled by a foolish 
despot and a handful of haughty and disdainful nobles. Unfortunately, these 
nobles and their king were able to commit the people of England— the brothers 
of the colonists— to the cause of oppression, and, in the conflict which followed, 
brother was arrayed against brother. 



Boston and the White Mountains. 149 

Dr. Paulus : "Woe unto the world because of offenses ! for it must needs be 
that offenses come ; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 

The President : Gilbert, can you give us very briefly the main incidents of 
the battle of Bunker Hill ? 

Gilbert : I will try, sir. The hasty entrenchments which you have described 
were on Breed's Hill, where the Bunker Hill monument now stands. This hill 
was part of a farm belonging to a Mr. Breed. A line of Earthworks and a redoubt 
had been hastily thrown up during the night on the flanks of Breed's hill nearest 
Boston. General Prescott held this position on the morning of the 17th with a 
thousand men, who had toiled all night at the earthworks, and in the morning he 
was reinforced by General Stark, with five hundred men, and General Warren, of 
Boston, a physician soldier, and a man held in high esteem by his co-patriots. Dr. 
Warren took his station in the redoubt, and General Stark with his five hundred 
men lined the inside of the rail fences which extended from Breed's Hill to the 
Mystic River. 

Meanwhile the British, led by Generals Howe, Burgoyne, and Pigot, landed at 
Morton's or Moulton's Point, with three thousand men — infantry, grenadiers, 
marines, and artillery. The soldiers were well under cover of the British ships in 
the harbor, and, as the boats landed the men, they were formed in companies, and 
then, sitting down on the grass, ate their dinners — for more than a thousand of 
them their last meal. 

It so happened that the patriots at the rail fences stood the onslaught of battle. 
They well knew how to handle their shot guns, but they were short of ammunition. 
Three or four times did the British charge up the hill, and were received with such 
a raking fire, that whole columns were shot down. But as the day wore on, the 
American ammunition gave out. The war ships in the harbor had, in the mean 
time, succeeded in setting Charlestown on fire. The Americans fought for a time 
at their fences with the stocks of their guns, but column after column of British 
soldiers swarmed upon them, and they had to retreat, which they did at four 
o'clock in the afternoon. General Warren was killed at the redoubt towards the 
close of the battle. The American loss was 145 killed and 304 wounded ; the 
British loss was more than double that of the Americans, and among the latter 
were thirteen commissioned officers. 



150 Picturesque Tours in America. 

The President: Thanks. It was not surprising that men who could hold 
their own for so lonsf airainst so terrific an onslaught, soon rallied, and before lone 
had the satisfaction of seeing the British leave Boston. Very soon after the battle 
of Bunker Hill, General Washington reached Cambridge, having been appointed 
by Congress to the command of the entire army. Washington saw the importance 
of the struggle at Boston, and came there in person to direct the movements of the 
Americans. His name was well known to every American soldier, and his arrival 
inspired the patriots with great confidence. Under his generalship Boston was so 
beleaguered and invested that on the 17th of March, 1776, General Howe and his 
army quitted the city, and the Americans took possession. And now. Miss Clara, 
will you be kind enough to give the club a brief historic explanation of what is 
sometimes called "the great Boston tea-party ?" 

Clara: If I understand it, the tea-party arose from a question of taxation. In 
Great Britain the principle was thoroughly recognized that the taxes to be paid by 
the people were to be decided by the representatives of the people. In other 
words, taxation and representation wertt together. In the colonies the people 
were taxed by the British Parliament, without having a voice in the matter. Per- 
haps the colonies would not have been in a hurry to fight over the prhiciplc, if the 
application of it had not become oppressive. But some of the Taxation Acts of 
Parliament were very heavy upon the Americans. I must ask the President to 
help me over the details, as to what some of the obnoxious taxes were. 

The President : Give just what you remember. 

Clara : Well, I know that one of these was called the Stamp Act, which was 
passed — 

Bertram: March, 1765. 

Clara : Almost every kind of legal document, notes, mortgages, etc., had to 
be printed on stamped paper made in England and costing from threepence to five 
or six guineas a sheet. Paper for newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, etc., was taxed 
several cents a sheet, and every advertisement in a newspaper was taxed, I think, 
two shillings. 

The President : How did this lead up to the tea-party? 

Clara : It made a terrible commotion through all the colonies, and the 
act was finally repealed, but was soon after followed by an act compelling 




A WHITE MOUNTAIN GLEN. 



152 Picturesque Tours in America. 

Americans to pay a duty on several articles of common use, amoni-'-st them 
being tea. 

The President : This was in 1767. In the mean time the great Mr. Pitt, who 
then sat on the Opposition side in the British Parliament, spoke firmly in favor of 
the colonies, and against the Stamp Act, and all similar attempts to tax the 
colonists. 

Mk. Gdldust: Pray, what excuse did the British ministry make for taxing the 
Americans ? 

The President: They thought that the colonists ought to reimburse England 
in some way for the expenses of the great French and Indian war, which was just 
over. It was as though England had taxed Canada during the war of 181 2. If 
she had done so Canada would have replied : " If we are to pay you for defending 
us we will raise the money ourselves in our own way, but we will not let you come 
and take the money out of our pockets." They would probably have added : 
"You must remember that it is your own war, not ours, though it is fought on our 
borders." This was what the American colonists thought, and in effect .said. 
They were willing to pay England money if she wanted it, but they would not let 
England come and take it by force without consulting them. 

Clara : But about the tea-party. When this new Taxation Act was passed 
there was another hubbub, of course, and Massachusetts now came to the front. 

Gilbert : Was that why Boston is called the Hub ? 

Clara: It might have been, but it was not. Massachusetts issued a circular 
calling upon the other colonies to unite In an effort to obtain redress of griev- 
ances. Riots took place in different parts of the country. The people of Massa- 
chusetts were declared rebels, and In Boston the soldiers shot down several 
citizens in the streets. This was in the spring of 1770, for these disputes and 
commotions lasted several years. At last the British Parliament agreed to take 
off all the obnoxious import taxes, except that on tea. 

John : The kettle now begins to boil. 

Clara : But, of course, this would not do. It was not now so much the tax as 
the /;'//?r/)>/i? which was objected to. No patriotic American would drink tea. A 
great deal of it was sent from England, but the people would not let It be landed, 
or else they stored it up In damp cellars and let it spoil. Some ships came to 



154 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



Boston loaded with it. A great meeting was held in the town, and at its close 
fifty men, disguised as Indians, rushed to the wharves, followed by the crowd, 
boarded the ships, and emptied all the chests of tea into the harbor. That was 
the Boston Tea Party — i6th December, 1773. 

The President: Excellently told, Clara. You know that, in retaliation for 
this, Parliament removed the Custom House from Boston to Salem, annulled the 
Massachusetts charter, and declared her citizens rebels ; that a great Colonial 
Congress then assembled at Philadelphia to consider the situation, and that the 
other States unanimously agreed to stand by Massachusetts to the last. The king 

then sent a orreat fleet and an 
army of ten thousand men to whip 
the colonists into subjection. 
"f ^.K^lj^e -^-^ I And now, if you please, it is 




'',11 1^ 



time for us to leave Boston and take the 
train to the White Mountains. We go to 
Portsmouth by the Eastern Shore line, passing Lynn, 
Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport. At Conway 
junction we take the Mountain Division of the road, 
and pass Rochester, and so on to North Conway, 
which we may call the southeastern gate of the White 
Mountain domain, and whence we may direct our 
journeys as we please. As I have only a few views 
of this interesting region we will take them one by 
one and let them suggest to us such topics as they may. 
The first view (p. 151) is of a general character, and I do not know that I can 
locate it. It is of a rocky glen, densely shaded, through which v/c must pick our 
way carefully. Perhaps some of you, in future rambles, may come across just 
this place ; if so, )'ou may recognize it by the curious bear-shaped rock on the 
right, like a bruin seated on its haunches. 

In another picture we get an excellent view of Mount Washington and the 
White Hills. The summit of Mount Washington is 6,293 f^^t above the level of 
the sea, and is the highest point in this region, or in any place in America east of 
the Rocky Mountains, excepting .some peaks among .the Black Mountains in 



MOU.NT WASHINGTON RAILWAY. 




SILVER CASCADE. 



156 Pichiresque Tours in America. 

Carolina. The summit of Mount Washington is occupied as a meteorological 
station by the United States Government. There is also a summer hotel known 
as Tip-top or Summit House. On the east side of the mountain there is a car- 
riage road, and on the west a railroad, either of which is very helpful to the 
tourist. The grade of this railroad is, in some places, one foot in three, and the 
track is of three rails, the center like a cog-wheel. The cars are swung so as to be 
always horizontal. Before these roads were built, the attempt to reach the 
summit was attended with considerable peril. In September, 1855, a lady who 
was accompanied by her uncle and cousin, died of fatigue and cold, and a pile of 
stones marks the place where her friends kept watch over her body through the 
long and sad night. There is also a spot pointed out where portions of a 
skeleton and some clothing were found in July, 1857. These were afterwards 
identified as the remains of a gentleman from Delaware. Dr. Benjamin Hall, 
of Boston, narrowly escaped with his life, after passing two nights on the moun- 
tain, lost in an October storm. 

Mrs. Goldust : I cannot see why people should expose themselves to such 
risks. For my part, grand as mountains are, I like the lesser hills better. 

Mr. Merriman : 

" If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all." 

The President : Here is a view of a portion of Crawford's Notch. To reach 
this place it may be well to go to the Crawford House, one of the earliest hostelries 
in the White Mountains, and which can be reached by railroad from North Con- 
way. As cars of observation are connected with the trains running through this 
region, it is pleasant to avail oneself of this means of travel whenever opportunity 
offers. The Notch is a mountain gorge, with walls 2,000 feet high, approaching in 
one particular spot to within twenty-two feet of one another. The brook Saco 
run through it, and the railroad also finds room. The Silver Cascade, of 
which our picture gives a view, is said to be the finest waterfall in the White 
Mountains. The fall is four hundred feet, almost perpendicular. There are 
numerous other cataracts, cascades, and objects of romantic interest which it 
would weary you if I were to try and describe. But our pictures speak for them- 
selves in this respect. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE WHITP: mountains CONTINUED. 

OLONEL WARLIKE : Did I understand you as saying on a former 
evening, that the White Mountains formed a portion of the o-reat 
Appalachian chain ? 

The President : No doubt. Speaking in a general way they 
, ^; -^ do, as when classifying the leading mountain divisions of the con- 
^-1*"^ tinent ; but in subdividing these great ranges it is usual to put the 

White Mountains into a group with an older series called the Atlantic system, 
lying east of the Appalachians proper, and including the Maine mountains. 

Mrs. Warlike : What extent of territory is covered by the White Mountains? 
The Presiden : About thirty miles from north to south, and 45 miles from 
east to west, and within this region there are over 200 distinct peaks, and innu- 
merable mountain gorges, streams and rivulets. 

Gilbert : I suppose the Indians had a name for these mountains ? 
The President : Yes, I find that they were called by the Indians Agioco- 
chook, signifying " Mountains of the Snowy Forehead" and Home of the Great 
Spirit. It is somewhat curious that while a great many of the streams and lakes 
in New Hampshire retain their Indian names, it is very rarely that we find a 
mountain peak so honored. In this region the principal mountains are named af- 
ter personages famous in our own history — Washington, Franklin, Monroe, Madi- 
son, Jefferson, etc. 

I should say that the mountains are divided into two clusters, the western, 
called the Franconia Mountains, and the eastern, or White Mountains proper. 
Between these groups is a table-land or plateau of irregular shape, several miles 
in width. 

I have here two very fine views, both from the Franconia group. One is of the 
Eagle Cliff Mountains, as seen from the Franconia Notch, looking northward. 
There is a mingled softness and grandeur about this and the other view which 
157 




EAGLE CI.IFF, WHITE MOUNTAINS. 



The White Mountains — Continued. 159 

is especially attractive. The Franconia Notch is a beautiful mountain pass, five 
miles long and half a mile wide. The sides are bold and often precipitous, and 
crowned with forests. The Pemigewasset River flows through this defile. There 
is a charming lake called Echo Lake near the north end, which ought to be visited. 
The echo from the center of the lake is wonderfully distinct, and of course there is the 
usual Indian superstition connected with it, that the echo is the voice of the Great 
Spirit. The second view is of the Cannon or Profile Mountain as seen from the 
Eagle Cliff Mountain, looking down the Notch. From some points of view the 
top of this mountain has some resemblance to a mounted cannon. The view from 
the summit is, of course, inexpressibly grand and very extensive. From another 
point of view the profile of an old man's face is distinctly traceable, and from a 
third, still another profile — that of an old woman. It was this mountain that sug- 
gested to Hawthorne his story in " Twice Told Tales" of " The Great Stone Face." 
Here we also find another beautiful lake called " Profile Lake." 

Lilian : Hawthorne begins his story, I think, by saying that the valley over- 
looked by this mountain contains many thousand inhabitants. 

The President : That is taking a kind of poetic license with these New Hamp- 
shire valleys, although some of them are quite populous. 

Albert: I have read Hawthorne's little story, and I confess I do not see the 
point of it. It is of a simple-minded, virtuous man, growing up among his neigh- 
bors, and all his life looking for the fulfillment of an old legend that somebody 
will come along whose face shall resemble the profile of the "old man of the mount- 
ain," and that that person, whoever he might be, should be the greatest and no- 
blest personage of his time. The people of the valley at length discovered that 
this simple-minded neighbor of theirs was the man. 

The President : I suppose that the moral lies in the fact that the man him- 
self never suspected the likeness nor dreamed that he was either great or noble. 

Aunt Harriet : True nobility of character is, I suppose, inconsistent with what 
is termed self-consciousness or egfotism. 

The President : The instant we begin to imagine we are great we betray our 
littleness. 

Dr. Paulus: " Professing themselves to be wise they became fools." 

Aunt Harriet: Perhaps there is another point in the story. From habitual 




CANNON-MOUNTAIN CLIFF, WHITE MOUNTAINS 



The JVIiite Mountains — Continued. i6i 

contemplation of this natural object, and from associating it in his mind with 
thoughts of virtue, the man grew up in the moral likeness of an ideal character. 
Hence the value of an ideal, and of some outward things to remind us of it. 

The Colonei, : Is there not a touch of ritualism there. Miss Victor? 

AuxT Harriet : Possibly, but I am not ashamed of it if there is. Because rit- 
ualism may be carried to an absurdity by some people is no reason why we should 
not be taught through our senses. 

Bertram : Professor, you must please tell us something of the geology of these 
mountains. 

The President : They are formed of the primitive metamorphic rocks, with 
peaks of granite and gneiss, but I have not yet read the reports of Professor 
Charles Hitchcock, the State geologist, which I understand are particularly full 
and valuable. Our time this evening will, however, hardly admit of an e.xcursion 
into this branch of inquiry. Meantime I would ask if some member of the club 
can recite to us any portion of Whittier's poem on White Mountain scenery. 

Laura: I remember some lines of his from " Franconia." 

" Once more, O Mountain of the North, unveil 

Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by ; 
And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail. 

Uplift against the blue walls of the sky 
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave 

Its golden net-work in your belting woods ; 

Smile down in rainbows from your falling fl"oods, 
And on your kingly brows, at morn and eve. 

Set crowns of fire ! So shall my soul receive, 
Haply, the secret of your calm and strength, 

Your unforgotten beauty interfuse 

My common life, your glorious shapes and hues 
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come. 

Loom vast through dreams and stretch in billowy length 
From the sea level of my lowland home. 

II 



CHAPTER XVII 




OTHER PICTURESQUE VIEWS OK NEW ENGLAND. 

I OR our entertainment this evening, remarked the President, it is 
provided that we make short flying excursions to some other points 
in New England. And first we will have a talk about Connecticut 
and its famous river. 

The history of Connecticut may be said to begin in 1630, when 
a grant of territory, extending from the southeast coast of Rhode 
Island, northward to the Massachusetts line, and westward to the extreme limits 
of the continent, was made to Lord Warwick by the Plymouth Company. 
John : What was the Plymouth Company? 

The President : A commercial and colonization company formed in England 
in 1606. 

John : The Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. 

The President : This was, therefore, several years before the Puritans sailed 
for America. The Plymouth Company and the London Company were formed 
in England in consequence of discoveries in the western hemisphere, and for pur- 
poses of gain. They obtained Charters from King James I., and sent vessels over 
to America to settle the country and develop its resources for trade with Eng- 
land. The Plymouth Company were to operate north of the forty-first parallel of 
latitude. Take the map and note that this runs through New Jersey and Penn- 
sylvania. The London Company were to operate south of the thirty-eighth par- 
allel to the thirty-fourth, comprising part of Virginia, the Carolinas, etc. It would 
be interesting to follow the fortunes of these companies, but that is out of the 
question now. 

Mrs. Goldust : I always thought that the Puritans were the first white people 
that came to America. 

The President : By no manner of means ; but they were the first that came 
and stayed \x\ the part we call New England, and they stayed to good purpose, as 
162 




VIEW OF SALMON BROOK, GRANBY, CONNECTICUT. 



164 Picturesque Tours in America. 



you know. They were the actual founders of New England. Let me see — 
where were we starting from ? 

John : The grant to Lord Warwick. 

The Presidext : Oh yes ! This was in 1630, ten years after the Puritans 
landed. A great deal had been done in those ten years. Besides the Puritan set- 
tlements in Massachusetts, the Dutch had founded New Netherlands, which ran 
right along the Hudson River, on both sides almost to Lake Champlain. Just 
about the time that the English Puritans sailed up the Connecticut River, the. 
Dutch, advancing from the west, sent their settlers towards the same point, and for 
a time there was quite a little flurry as to who should possess the land. Finally, 
as you know, the English got it. It was a beautiful country, with hills and vales. 
rivers and streams, and fronting to the south on the grand Long Island Sound. 
If we had time, there are many lovely spots we might visit, but I dare not invite 
you to stay. Here is a view near Granby, in the center of the State of Connecti- 
cut, and here is another beautiful landscape, not in Connecticut, indeed, but in the 
noble valley of its river as it flows through Massachusetts under the shadow of 
Mt. Ascutney. Connecticut itself is full of lovely valleys and places of historical 
interest. From the time of the grant to Lord Warwick its settlement went steadily 
forward, slowly of course at first, encountering many difficulties, and the occasion of 
many political blunders and sins. 

Bertram : How comes it that Connecticut is so small a State when its original 
grant gave it so much territory ? 

The President : The original grantors did not take into consideration the 
Dutch settlement of New Netherlands, and in 1650 it was found necessary to come 
to terms with the latter colony, and to fix the boundary of Connecticut on this 
side of the Hudson, and subsequently the powerful Duke of York obtained grants 
from England, and New York absorbed New Netherlands. In fact, Connecticut 
soon found itself locked within its present rather confined but interesting and very 
lOeautiful territory. 

We will now proceed farther north to the State of Vermont, where we find, 
first, a scene on the Missisquoi River. 

Clara : Indian name, of course. 

The President : The Missisquoi is, I suppose, the largest stream in Vermont, 




MOUNT ASCUTNEY, CONNECTICUT \ALLEy. 



1 66 Picfiiresqiic Tours in America. 



and the scenery through which it Hows, and of which it forms an ever varying and 
deHghtful feature, is wild, charming and beautiful. To reacli this river we should 
first make for the city of St. Albans, a fine town of some eight thousand inhabi- 
tants, and a few miles east of Lake Champlain. It is famous as the scene of a 
raid from Canada during the late civil war. 

Grace : I would like to hear about that. 

The President : I think that Mr. Merriman knows all about it. 

Mr. Merriman : I remember it very well. There was a movement in 1864, on 
the part of the South, towards raising a disturbance on the Canadian frontier. It 
was a very natural thing, from a military point of view, to attempt. Some des- 
peradoes seized two American ships on Lake Erie, and a small body of men, per- 
haps twenty or thirty, made a sudden raid into this little town, shot one or two 
men, robbed the banks of a good deal of money, and bolted back across the Can- 
adian frontier with their plunder. It was an impudent thing, and the worst of it 
was that the Canadian judge who tried these rascals discharged them on some 
technical grounds, though the Canadian government had to make good the dam- 
ages, as far as it could. 

The President : St. Albans was the rendezvous also of a Fenian army, 2,000 
strong, in 1866. This army invaded Canada, but was quickly dispersed, and the 
foolish men were right glad to get passes from the American authorities on the 
railroad lines back to their homes again. 

Eiorht miles from St. Albans is the delightful little watering place of Sheldon 
Springs, the waters of which are, I understand, much sought after. Here the Mis- 
sisquoi flows through a charming valley with rich and romantic landscapes on 
every hand. Our view gives a portion of the rapids — a characteristic and truthful 
sketch. 

Then we have a view of Mount Mansfield from Rice's Hill, an admirable pic- 
ture of the northern portion of the Green Mountains. Mount Mansfield is the 
loftiest peak of this range, being about 4,400 feet high. On the whole, the tour- 
ist finds abundant material for enjoyment in this rural neighborhood. 

Mr. Goldust : I see that these mountains of Vermont do not have the rugged 
outline of the White Mountains, still less that of the Rocky Mountains. 

The President: No ; they are of smoother and more rounded appearance, es- 




VIEW ON THE MISSISQUOl RIVEK, VERMONT. 



1 68 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



pecially on the western slopes. At the termination of the long and severe winter 
they come forth clothed with a rich green grass, and this, together with the ever- 
green forests which abound on their sides, gives them their distinguishing name, 
which of course is the origin of the name of the State itself. 

We now proceed by the quickest imaginary route to the little State of Rhode 







MOUNT MANSFIELD, MASS. 



Island, which, if modern researches are to be relied upon, is the ancient Vinland 
discovered by the Northmen about the year a. d. looo. The view before us is of 
some rocks near Newport, and one of its principal natural objects of interest. 

Col. Warlike : One of the finest fortifications in the United States is Fort 
Adams, at Newport. 



i 




NEr.RO HFAD, NF.WrORT. 



lyo Picturesque Tours in America. 



The President : Newport suffered very severely during the war of Independ- 
ence. The British and Hessian troops quartered there were reckless and brutal in 
their destructiveness. In recent times it has become a fashionable and wealthy 
watering place. 

Mr. Goluust : Was not Rhode Island founded by Roger Williams, a Baptist 
minister ? 

The Prksidext: Rhode Island obtained its charter in 1643 through Roger 
Williams, who in 1635 was banished from the Massachusetts colony for holding 
views which were then considered dangerous to the progress of the Commonwealth. 
He was a Baptist in principle, though up to the time of his departure from Mas- 
sachusetts he was connected with the Orthodox Church of that colony. 

Laura : In what respects were the views of Roger \^'^illiams distasteful to the 
others ? 

The Presiden r : Chiefly in this respect, that he denied the right of the magis- 
trates and civil government of a .State or nation to interfere or adjudicate on ec- 
clesiastical or spiritual matters. The Puritans, though regarded as nonconformists 
in England, held decidedly Church and State sentiments. They believed in try- 
ing to make men good Christians by force of law, and frowned upon the broader 
views of Williams, who denied the right of the civil power to impose a religion 
upon a people. 

Albert : Where did they banish him to ? 

The President : It was their intention to send him back to England, but he 
gave them the slip, as the saying is, and with a few companions fled from his per- 
secutors to the shores of the Narragansett bay, and, after a time, settled down 
among the Indians, purchasing lands from them, and calling the place Providence. 
He was a good man, of large intellect and heart, and the State of Rhode Island, 
though of necessity small, being limited in all directions by prior grants, or by the 
ocean itself, is a grand monument to his life and principles. 

Our tour in this part of our country is of necessity a brief one, and must end 
here; for though modern science has almost annihilated such old-fashioned things 
as time and space, yet we cannot quite dispense with the supper-hour, which is now 
upon us. Perhaps on some future occasion we may do more justice to the Eastern 
States. 



CHAPTER X V 1 I 1 






-■^i^j^r^ LAKE GEORGE. 




^W(St^ AKE George and the Adirondack region were at first chosen for 
successive tours. Owing to a slight misapprehension, two members 
had come prepared to lead the tourists through these very attrac- 
tive fields of observation, on this, the ninth evening, at the house 
of the President. As this was expected to be the last but one of 
the regular meetings of the club, and as the tour for the tenth even- 
ing was already decided upon, it was agreed, after some conversation, to combine 
the two tours into one and to undertake them both. " This," remarked somebody, 
" is one of the advantages connected with this mode of traveling. We are not 
bound by any of the fixed and definite rules of time or space, but can accommo- 
date these to our wishes or dispense with them altogether." 

Accordingly Miss Lilian was requested to conduct the club to a brief visit to 
Lake George. 

Lilian {reading from tiotcs) : Lake George is situated in Warren county, 
New York .State, about sixty miles north of Albany. We reach it from Saratoga 
by rail to Glen Falls — to appreciate which spot, we must not only see it but read 
" The Last of the Mohicans," — and thence by stage to Caldwell at the head of the 
lake. We pass by the spot where Col. Williams, the founder of Williams 
College, fell in battle, Sept. 8, 1755, and where a monument has been erected to 
his memory. 

Gilbert : Col. Williams was leading his regiment on a reconnoissance of the 
French troops, when he fell into an Indian ambuscade and was shot through the 
head. It was found that he had willed all his property to the support of a free 
school, and this was the foundation of Williams College. 

Mr. Merriman : The monument was erected in 1854 by the alumni of the 
college. 

171 



172 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



Lilian : How can I begin to describe the charms of this lake and its surround- 
ings, or bring before you the many interesting historic reminiscences connected 
with it ? I hardly know how to begin, and I am afraid that I shall hardly know 
how to end. However, as our time is short, and as verbosity is forbidden by the 




FOURTEEN-MILE ISLAND, LAKE GEORGE. 



usages of this club, I will draw at once upon my portfolio, and while the pictures 
are being handed about I will " say my say." 

First, let me inform you that this is not a little lake by any means. As com- 
pared with any of the great lakes of the north it is, of course, very small ; but its 
thirty-six miles of length and its four miles of breadth at the widest, form no incon- 



Lake George. 173 



siderable area. It is a good day's trip to go by steamer right along it and back 
the same day ; from Caldwell on the south, to Baldwin on the north, where the 
lake finds its outlet, through Wood Creek, into the larger waters of Lake Cham- 
plain, some three or four miles distant. 

Here there is a view of Fourteen Mile Island, or at least of a part of it. That 
is it, where the people are pushing off with their boat. I suppose there are steps 
cut somewhere in these rocks, so that we can climb up. This is a large island, and 
has a good hotel upon it. Before we get there we pass a good many points of 
interest, of which I will name a few. The general features of the scenery are the 
same of course as in the views now presented. There is a little island called 
Diamond Island, an account of the quartz-crystals found upon it. During the war 
of Independence a battle or skirmish took place on this island, and I am sorry to 
say that the patriots were beaten. Then there is Dome Island, where General 
Putnam once encamped his troops during the French war. In fact, it is astonish- 
ing how much history has been not written but }}iadc in this romantic region. 

Of course you all know about the great French general Montcalm. We might 
spend the whole evening in following his footsteps (in imagination) over and 
around these waters. 

Mrs. Goldust : Please let us hear something about him. 

Lilian : He was a French marquis — Marquis de Saint Veran Montcalm — and 
a brilliant and successful soldier, trained to war from his youth, and dying on the 
battle-field of Quebec at forty-seven years of age, in the service of his country. 
He was general commander of the French troops during the French war in Canada 
in 1756-60. In 1757 he besieged Fort William Henry — the ruins of which we can 
explore at the south end of this lake — with 8,000 soldiers, and compelled the garri- 
son of 2,500, including women and children, to surrender at discretion after a brave 
defense. But I am sorry to say he was either unable or unwilling, or, perhaps, both 
unable and unwilling to prevent the Indians who fought under him from bar- 
barously massacring the entire garrison after they had given up their arms. This 
will always be a blot upon his memory. On the east shore of the lake is Ferris's 
Bay, where he marshaled his army and moored the boats in which he had 
descended the lake. 

The Colonel: It was strange that both Montcalm and Wolfe, the two oppos- 



174 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



ing generals, should be slain at that decisive battle on the plains of Abraham which 
fixed the destiny of America. 

Dr. Paulus: And quite as strange the dying utterances of both men. Wolfe 
exclaimed, when he heard of the victory of his soldiers : " Then I die happy." 




VIEW FROM FOURTEEN-MILE ISLAND, LAKE GEORGE. 



Montcalm, on being told that he must soon die, said : " So much the better ; I 
shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." I have sometimes thought, if 
a human soul can be thus lifted above the fear of death by earthly emotions, how 
much more reasonable to believe in the triumph of the apostle Paul and of all 



Lake George. 



175 



believers as expressed in tlie words : " Thanks be unto God who giveth us tlie 
victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Lilian : Here is another view from Fourteen Mile Island, and to vary the scene 
the artist has pictured it by moonlight Avith very grand cloud effects. How bold 
and sombre the rocks stand out in the foreground, and how beautiful the shadows 
on the rippling waters ! 




SABBATH-DAY POINT, LAKE GEORGE. 



Clara: That suggests the Indian name of this lake — Horicon, or silvery 
waters. 

Lilian : The steamer stops at a number of landing places on both shores, 
crossing and recrossing several times, giving many picturesque views. At length 
it enters the Narrows, passing by numerous islets, and with views of Black 
Mountains and Sugar Loaf Mountain on the east, and Deer's Leap Mountain on 



176 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



the west, and then we approach Sabbath Day Point, of which we have an 
illustration. 

This spot, notwithstanding its peaceful name, was the scene of some hard fight- 
ing in the war of Independence. Just why and when it was first called by this 




LONG ISLAND, LAKK GEORGE. 



name no one seems to know. It is said that the British general Abercrombie 
halted here over Sunday with his troops in 1758, before proceeding to attack Fort 
Ticonderoga ; but some authorities say that the place was known by its present 
name before 1758. 

After leaving Sabbath Day Point we pass a rock called Anthony's Nose, and 



Lake George. 



177 



two miles farther north Roger's Slide, and so on to Baldwin, where there are 
railroad cars in waiting to take the tourist northward to Ticonderoga and Lake 
Champlain. Going back by the steamer we will particularly notice two fine views, 
of which we have a representation — Long Island and the Cat Mountain. 

Gilbert : I understand that Roger's Slide is so named because a Major Rogers, 




CAT MOUNTAIN, LAKE GEORGE. 



when pursued by Indians during the French war, slid down the rock. It was 
winter time and the water was frozen over, so that he contrived to escape over 
the ice. 

Mr. Goldust : That reminds me of the story of a hunter in California who 



iy8 Picturesque Tours in America. 

thought to save time by sHdlng on a log down the face of a mountain. When 
half way down he espied a bear standing direct in his course, and eagerly watching 
him. The man was perfectly helpless, and, as he flew down, his log struck the 
bear — and bear, man, and log were carried headlong, in a medley, to the bottom. 
Finally the hunter had the pleasure of cutting up the bear and carrying his skin 
home, but it was a serious question at one time who would come out best, bear 
or man. 

The Colonel : That is a good hunter's yarn, but quite as wonderful things do 
happen in the Sierra Mountains. 

Kate : When was Lake George discovered ? 

Lilian : By the French early in the 1 7th century, and it was named by the 
English after king George IL Its Indian name was Andiatarocte, or, "the place 
where the lake closes." The name " Horicon " is given it by Cooper, probably 
because the Iroquois tribe was sometimes called the Horiconi. 

The Colonel : Does any member of the club know who this Major Rogers 
was of whom we have heard ? 

Bertram : He was Robert Rogers of New Hampshire. He offered to scout 
the woods with a battalion of men to be called rangers, and he saw some rare 
fighting. 

Aunt Harriet : I have listened with very great interest to these reminiscences, 
but at the same time I cannot express how sadly I feel when I associate these fair 
and lovely scenes with so much human bloodshed. It seems to me that the 
butchery of man by his brother man, when there is so much of sadness and misery 
in life without it, is a blot upon the human intellect. With life so short at best, 
and often so full of sorrow, the very thought of war and murder is appalling. 

Mrs. Goldust : The whole of creation is, according to the Apostle, groaning 
and travailing for redemption. I suppose humanity has not yet found what it 
seeks. 

Mr. Harvey : What an inspiring thought that the wrong shall be righted and 
the mystery explained by and by. 

' The President : " When the sword shall be turned into the plowshare and the 
spear into the pruning hook, and nations shall learn war no more." 

The Colonel : To me that time seems farther off than ever. 



Lake George. 179 



Aunt Harriet : I always enjoy singing the hymn : 

" We are vvatchingf, we are waiting 

For the bright prophetic day, 
When the shadows, weary shadows. 

From the world shall roll away. 
We are watching, we are waiting 

For the star that brings the day 
When the night of sin shall vanish 

And the shadows melt away." 

Dr. Paulus : God grant that we may all see that day and rejoice. 

Mrs. Merriman : It seems hardly possible, however, that war can ever agairr 
visit these peaceful scenes. For the present and for all the future they appear tO' 
be dedicated to peaceful occupation and the rest and refreshment of weary toilers. 
A hundred years does not seem so very long ago, and yet in that time the character 
of this region has been completely changed. 

The Colonel : Greatly as I deplore the horrors of war, I sometimes think that 
it is by no means the worst enemy of mankind. * 

Albert : " Better to die with glory, than recline 

On the soft lap of ignominious peace ! " 

The Colonel : Exactly, and then we must remember that war, as an extreme 
resort, is often a national duty. It is a duty for the American government to defend 
the settlers on the frontier from the attacks of the savages. I admit, of course, 
the many wrongs which have been done to the Indians. 

Aunt Harriet: At least three-fourths of the wars that have arisen on earth 
have been disgraceful to the humanity and common sense of all concerned ; but I 
cannot penetrate the mystery of sin, and I do not know that any of us can do 
more than simply let our lives, with whatever of influence they are crowneti, preach 
forth the doctrine of love and brotherhood, and then hope in God for the rest. 

Lilian : Meanwhile, my dear Aunt, may we not rejoice in the glory God sends 
around us in these beautiful summer days of life ? May we not draw from such 
scenes as we have been visiting a lesson of trust in the workings of Divine Provi- 



i8o 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



dence, notwithstanding the gloom and the storm througli which we must sometimes 
pass? I would like, before leaving this beautiful lake in its mountain setting, to 
quote a few verses from Whittier's " Summer by the Lakeside " : 

" O isles of calm ! O dark still wood ! 
And stiller skies that overbrood 
Your rest with deeper quietude ! 



"Farewell ! around this smiling bay 

Gay hearted Health and Life in bloom, 
With lighter steps than mine, may stray 
In radiant summers yet to come. 

" But none shall more regretful leave 
These waters and these hills than I : 
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve 
Or dawn is painting wave and sky ; 

" How rising moons shine, sad and mild, 

On wooded isle and silvering bay ; 

Or setting suns beyond the piled 

And distant mountains lead the day, 
* * * * 

" O watched by Silence and by Night, 
And folded in the strong embrace 
Of the great mountains, with the light 
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face. 



" Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower 
Of beauty still, and, while above 
Thy solemn mountains speak of power. 
Be thou the mirror of God's love ! " 



CHAPTER XIX 




THE ADIRONDACKS. 

ILBERT : I dare not attempt to give you a description of the Adi- 
rondack wilderness, for I am not going to write a book ; but I have 
half a dozen views which will occupy us probably during the rest of 
this evening. 

You all know where to find this great region on the map. It is 
in itself almost a kingdom for extent, and its sovereign is Nature. It 
is too rugged, too wild, too far-off from the routes of business traffic, and perhaps 
of too little value in a mineral sense to become a "hive of industry." It is a vast, 
mountainous, lumbering, and fishing country, a hundred miles by one hundred and 
fifty in extent, and, a generation ago, was trodden only by the hunter, the trapper, 
and the lumberman. It has no sites in it for great cities; its rivers are mountain 
streams ; its roads are bridle paths or tangled and rocky footways. Its carriages 
are the lightest of boats, one of which will carry two or three people on the lakes 
and streams, and can then be carried on the shoulders of a man until it is ao-ain 
needed, which will be before long, you may be sure. Its hackmcn are guides at two 
or three dollars a day, all fouiid. As travelers in the Adirondacks live mostly on 
the fish they catch and the deer they shoot down, the actual money cost of living 
per head is not very great. But then it is necessary that somebody in the party 
should know how to fire a gun and handle a fishing rod. Mere book-learning, 
college degrees, polished manners, and even money, will not suffice to obtain a 
meal for one hungry man, not to say several people. If ladies accompany the 
party, as they sometimes do, they must put aside the attire of the city and don a 
costume half Mohammedan and half modern — short dresses, Turkish drawers that 
fasten tightly at the ankle, thick boots, felt hat, buckskin gloves, and armlets to fas- 
ten tightly at the wrist. They will then be comparatively mosquito proof, a very 
necessary point — for even one mosquito or forest fly may prove a formidable enemy. 

iSi 



1 82 Picturesque Tours in America. 

To those who cannot sleep except upon a regulation bed under a ceiling, and to 
whom the daily newspaper is a necessity of existence, there are hotels here and 
there in which the tourist can find everything to his hand ; but to understand life 
in the Adirondacks one has to step outside of these conventional habits, to learn 
how to launch and paddle one's own canoe, to hunt, to fish, to build one's own 
camp at evening by some rippling brook, or on the shores of a still lake, to light a 
camp fire, and to sleep serenely, wrapj^ed in a blanket, upon a couch of twigs. And 
it is wonderful how soon one gets not only accustomed to but even enamored of this 
sort of life. The days and weeks glide by ; " the world recedes and disappears ; " 
the stars become strangely familiar to us through the forest trees ; the face and 
hands grow tawny ; dyspepsia and headache fly away ; and when the time comes 
for returning to civilization and business it is with no little regret that one turns 
away from this unkempt but salubrious and attractive wilderness. 

I have here a beautiful jDicture of Preston Pond. Near by is a rugged Indian 
pass through which the hunters and trappers have long traveled from north to south. 
We may now consider ourselves in the very heart and center of the Adirondacks. 
Can you conceive of anything more solitary, stupendous, grand, and yet inviting 
to the tourist in search of these features in Nature ? We have not here the 
ruggedness of outline of the Rocky Mountains, nor their immense elevation, and 
their eternal snows ; and yet I do not know but that, in some respects, I prefer such 
scenery as this. These mountain peaks are high enough to climb for me. Some 
of them are over five thousand feet high, and there are five ranges of them — over 
five hundred mountains, and over a thousand lakes embosomed among them, with 
a vast, rugged, silent forest, seemingly immeasurable — that is to say, when you are 
living in it ; and deer and other game innumerable, besides fish in plenty. 

I do not know whether Longfellow ever spent a fortnight in the Adirondacks, 
but I think there is much force and feeling in his words — though I cannot speak 
from experience of any wearing sorrows or hard work : 

"If thou art worn and hard beset 
With sorrows that thou wouldst forget 
If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep 
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 




PRESTON PONDS. 



184 Picturesque Tours m America. 

Go to the woods and hills ! No tears 
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." 

What do you say to that, Aunt Harriet ? 

Aunt Harriet: From one point of view the poet is corre.ct, but I do not 
altogether agree with him. Nature does sometimes wear anything but a sweet 
look, and to me she often brintrs thoughts of sadness, thoucrh I do not know that I 
love her the less on that account. 

The President : We go to Nature in all our moods for sympathy, and we get 
it. In the morning of life, or when the heart is full of joy and ecstasy, the flowers of 
the field, the trees of the forest, and the stars of heaven seem to rejoice with us ; 
and 1 think that in sorrow and sadness Nature is no less sympathetic. 

Clara : Is it not Mrs. Hemans who says : 

" An undertone 



Was given to Nature's harp, for me alone 
Whispering of grief." 

Gilbert : St. Regis Lake, which is shown in our second illustration, is situated 
in the northwestern corner of the Adirondacks. There are two lakes of this name, 
upper and lower, and also a mountain peak ; and this is a favorite spot for hunters 
and fishermen. 

Albert : What kind of deer are to be found in the Adirondacks ? 

Gilbert : There are a few moose, but they are getting scarce. The common 
deer of the forest is like that shown in the picture. Let me see — it is called 
Cariacus Virginiamis. It is over five feet long from nose to tail. It is a very 
beautiful, and in death a very useful animal. The venison is excellent eating, and 
its skin and horns are valuable. Its sinews are made into bow-strings and snow- 
shoes' netting. In the daytime it is hard to find, but at evening it comes to the 
streams and lake-side to drink, and so gets within range. 

Mr. Merriman: There are game-laws regulating the hunting of this animal. 

The Colonel: Oh yes. The hunting season lasts from September ist to 
November 30 — three months, and it is illegal to hunt them with dogs. They are 
said by hunters to be growing scarcer every year, though still fairly abundant. 



The Adiyondacks. 



185 



Gilbert : Here is a charming view on tlie river Ausable, at a point near which 
it enters the upper Ausable Lalce. This river with its branches flows in a general 
northeasterly direction through scenery of the wildest and most romantic character, 
and ultimately falls into Lake Champlain. There are some fine cataracts along this 




DEER ON LAKE ST. REGIS — NIGHT. 



Stream, for instance the Alice Falls near Keeseville, and the Birmingham Falls 
(not a very romantic name) where it plunges over rocks seventy feet high, in a 
semicircle of great beauty. Then we come to the Horse-Shoe Falls, and so on to 
Ausable Chasm, a very picturesque spot, where the gorge narrows to a few feet. 



1 86 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



with high cHffs on each side, and glens with brooks and little cataracts branching 
out in all directions. 

Mr. Goldust : What are the principal fish caught in the Adirondacks? 




MORNING ON THE AUSABI.E. 



Gilbert : Trout of all sizes, from small speckled trout to twenty-pound lake 
trout. You can find them in the stony mountain brooks, and among the lily-pads 



The Adiroiidacks. 



187 



skirting the edge of the lakes and ponds, and large trout in June and July in the 
spring holes and deeper ponds. The best time to catch them is at sunrise and sunset. 
The President : That is a convenient arrangement for the tourist. 




THE GLEN. 



Gilbert : Certainly, as fresh trout from the lake or brook is no mean dish I 
assure you, especially with a mountain appetite for sauce. 

Mr. Merriman : Does not Mr. Murray, in his famous book, speak of his experi- 



1 88 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



ences as an angler ? I think he says that he caught a hundred brook trout in less 
than an hour, weighing from a quarter of a pound to two pounds and a half. 

Gilbert : He must have had unusual luck. 

The Colonel : You must go to the Maine forests if you would catch fine trout. 



' 




LAKE HENDERSON. 



Mr. Merriman : It is several years ago since I paid my first and as yet only 
visit to the Adirondacks, in company with two friends. We found our way by a 
mountain wagon road from Ticonderoga to the northern end of Schroon Lake, and 
to Schroon River, where we stayed a few days at an inn kept by a man named Root — 
a real good fellow and a real good country inn. Mr. Root then drove us in a wagon 



I 



The Adirondacks. 



189 



and team to the head of Lake Sanford, which is the one spot in the Adirondaclcs 
worked by miners. The enterprise did not succeed, by reason chiefly, I believe, of 
the cost of transport, for there is, no doubt, plenty of iron ore. Here we stayed 
for a day or two and then tramped to Lake Henderson. 




UPPER AUSABLE LAKE. 



We crossed this beautiful lake in a scow, and made our way through the forests 
to the Preston Ponds, of which we have heard this evening, and in the neighbor- 



190 Picturesque Tours iu America. 

hood of which we stayed several days. I would like to repeat this tour with the 
same companions, or with any pleasant friends who enjoy out-of-door exercise. 

Gilbert : Our last view is of the upper Ausable Lake. There is a great con- 
trast between the upper and lower lakes of this name. The latter is grand and 
almost awful in some of its features. The mountains rise precipitously from the 
water's edge, sometimes six or eight hundred feet high, with streams and cataracts 
and many a gnarled and uprooted tree. The upper lake, on the other hand, 
nestles peacefully in the forest with gentle slopes receding from its banks, and 
distant mountains lending stately grandeur to the scene. 

And now I must stop, for my portfolio is empty. I have not told you of the 
Saranac River and lakes, nor of the Raquette River with its magnificent lake from 
which it issues, and its course of a hundred and twenty miles to the St. Lawrence 
River; nor of a thousand other rivers, lakes, mountains, and valleys, which cover 
this glorious region. Neither have I time to speak of the natural history of the 
Adirondacks, its birds, its flora, and its geology. I must plead that my knowledge 
on these points is extremely limited ; but if I should have the good fortune to 
address the club on a future occasion, I may have more information to impart on 
these interesting subjects. 

The meeting then became informal, and after refreshments, music, and social 
converse, was in due season brought to a close. 



I 



CHAPTER XX. 




THE HUDSON RIVER AND THE CATSKILLS. 

'HE tenth tour was held at the house of the President. 

The President : It falls to my lot to mention a few pictur- 
esque places on the Hudson, and to conduct you to the Catskill 
Mountains. 

Almost from our starting point in New York, ascending the 
stream, v/e are impressed with the beauty and grandeur of the sur- 
roundings. On the left we soon reach the commencement of the peculiar rock 
formation known as The Palisades, from a fancied resemblance, I suppose, to a 
palisade fence. These Palisades constitute one of the most interesting features in 
the river scenery. They extend over twenty miles. There is an irregular columnar- 
like precipice springing from a sloping bank of shale and debris, the slope and the 
top of the ridge in some parts being covered, with a forest. 

The geologic features of this ridge have often puzzled geologists. The rock is 
granite — Lossing calls it a projecting trap dyke — lying upon a bed of sandstone, 
so that here we have a reversal of the usual order of things, the sandstone being a 
much later formation. To what freaks of nature, and to what period of time, this 
reversal of things is due, is an interesting topic which, with similar phenomena in 
other parts of the world, early arrests the attention of those who study geology. 
But the result in this instance is one which has been strikingly useful, for it so 
happens that these Palisades and the mountains of which they form the river 
frontage, furnish to New York city the stones which are used in her street pave- 
ments. The rocks are blasted, and then the blocks are hewn by chisel and mallet 
into cubes, or solid squares, and shipped by the contractors to the city. They 
make the very best of street pavements — the only one that will stand the immense 
traffic of the city, with its continual " tramp, tramp " of iron hoofs, and the ceaseless 
roll of countless wheels bearing merchandise and people along its thoroughfares. 
I should state that these Palisades are in many places 300 feet high. Here 

191 




PINNACLES OF THE PALLISADES. 



The Hudson River and the Catskills. 193 

is a very fine view of one of the boldest portions of them, called " The 
Pinnacles." 

If I were to attempt to give the historic features which make this river so inter- 
esting, I should have to expand this tour into several. Opposite the northern 
limit of the Palisades is Piermont, with its mile-long pier ; and three miles south is 
Tappan, where Major Andre was executed. A few miles farther on the east side 
is Irvington, named after Washington Irving, and near by is Sunnyside, where he 
lived. Of course, every young American soon learns the place in literature filled 
by this pleasing author. His literary career extended over about the first half of 
this century. 

Mr. Goldust : I was amused with the half contemptuous manner in which 
Thomas Carlyle disposes of Irving in his Reminiscences. He speaks of Irving being 
in Paris at the time Carlyle visited that city, says he was a kind of a lion at that time^ 
and that he (Carlyle) had " a mild esteem of the good man." I think that is his 
expression. 

The President : Carlyle had an unfortunate habit of writing down his own 
hasty and dyspeptic conclusions, as if they were more or less inspired, and he has 
tarnished his own grand reputation by so doing. He had a keen eye for the weak- 
nesses of men, and in his brusque way, often held them forth to ridicule or condem- 
nation, forgetful of their merits. I am sorry to say that we cannot, as I intended, 
have a little further conversation about this good man Irving. 

The next point we come to in the order of our march is West Point, a place of 
great natural beauty on the west bank of the river. It is also of great national and 
historic interest and importance, besides being the site of a great military academy. 
I hardly like to pass Tarrytown by without a reference. We know that Major 
Andre was arrested here, Sept. 23d, 1780. Every American schoolboy knows the 
history of this man, and the circumstances attending his death. 

Mr. Goldust : And I imagine that the idea of building a monument to his 
memory on American soil, however well intentioned, will never be tolerated by our 
people. 

The President : I do not wonder at it. Admitting his courage and accomplish- 
ments, he aimed a most deadly blow, in the service of his sovereign, at American 
liberties, and it seemed almost a special interposition of Providence which frustrated 



194 Picturesque Tours in America. 

his plans. There is this, however, to be said in extenuation of Andre; he never in- 
tended, when starting on his journey to meet Arnold, to enter the American lines as a 
spy. He was to meet General Arnold on neutral ground, and arrange the details of 
a surrender, proposed and planned by Arnold. The attempt to meet Arnold failed 
twice. Finally Mr. Joshua Smith, of Long Clove, just above Haverstraw, on the 
west bank of the river, went in a small boat in the night-time with two boatmen to 
the British ship Vulture, under a flag of truce, carrying a message to Major Andre, 
who returned with them, and met Arnold at Long Clove. After a long conversa- 
tion together in the woods, Andre was anxious to return to the Vnlhcj-c, but the 
two boatmen would not take him back. Possibly something had aroused their 
suspicions, although General Arnold's presence seemed to be a sufficient guarantee ; 
but they pleaded danger, and stubbornly refused to go. So the principals ad- 
journed to Smith's house, and there, over breakfast, completed their plans for the 
surrender on September 26, four days later, of West Point, the key of the Hudson 
and the great stronghold and storehouse of the Americans. This was Sept. 22d. 
During the forenoon Arnold entered his barge and sailed up the river to his head- 
quarters. Andre waited until evening and then, accompanied by Mr. Smith, 
crossed the Hudson at Stony Point by the regular ferry, and with Arnold's pass, 
made out in favor of John Anderson, in his hand, went through the American 
lines on the east side of the river. Smith here left Andre, and the latter pursued 
his way alone on horseback. Coming to a fork in the road he turned to the 
right through Sleepy Hollow, and when within half a mile of the British outposts 
fell into the hands of three patriots, who stopped him and discovered in his boots 
some treasonable papers which he had obtained from Arnold. 

Mr. Merriman : What were Arnold's motives in planning this treachery ? 

The President : It is hard to fathom them. He was doubtless chagrined at 
having been censured for some irregular action in the army, and on account of the 
failure of some claims of his upon Congress. Perhaps also he miscalculated the 
issues of the contest, and was desirous of being on the winning side. At any 
rate he showed himself to be utterly without principle, although he had previously 
fought well and earned distinction as a soldier. 

We now steam up the river, passing Stony Point with its history, also leaving 
Peekskill on the east, and grand old Donderberg — Thunder Mountain — on the: 



The Hudson River and the Cat skills.. 195 

west. Anthony's Nose is also seen to our right^a very prominent feature in the 
landscape, the meaning of which is duly set forth in Irving's curious " History of 
New York." We are now going through the Highlands of the Hudson and in the 
midst of the most picturesque scenery. We pass lona Island, with its vineyards, 
and (on the right) Sugar Loaf Mountains and Fort Independence. Buttermilk 
Falls come into view on the left, and then West Point. 

Lilian : You have omitted Clinton and Montgomery forts, and have said 
nothing about the old chain or boom across the river at this spot. 

The President : Simply because we have not time to refer, even in passing, to 
all the interesting places. The scenery at West Point is very beautiful, and it 
would pay us to land and ascend to the ruins of old Fort Putnam, which can be 
seen on the heights from the river. Bull Hill and Breakneck Hill, and other 
features of the landscape come and go. We pass Fort Constitution on the right, 
Cornwall landing and Newburg on the left, Poughkeepsie on the right, and 
opposite this beautiful city we see New Paltz landing, at which, if we so please, we 
can disembark, and proceed by stage to the charming Lake Mohawk, where we 
may very enjoyably pass a few days before extending our trip to the Cats- 
kills. 

These mountains cover a territory of at least thirty miles square, comprising, of 
course, numerous towns and villages. Geologically they present the same general 
features as the AUeghanies of Pennsylvania ; but they differ from the latter in the 
important particular that the peculiar dips in the strata shut out the possibility of 
coal beds being discovered. The Catskill region will never, therefore, possess a 
mininof character. It will remain for all time a roaming ground for the tourist in 
search of health and recreation, the botanist, the artist, and the lover of nature. 
Many of the mountains are clothed with forest : but over vast tracts the hills stand 
out in desolate and naked outline, enclosing plateaus in which villages have 
sprung up for the entertainment and care of the tourist. From these places excur- 
sions to different points of interest are organized — sometimes on foot, sometimes in 
carriages. But it is now impossible for us to visit a tithe of the sights worth 
seeing. 

Here is a glimpse of a view from Sunset Rock, which suggests Wordsworth's 
descriptive lines : 



196 



Picturesque Tours in America. 



" O, 'twas an unimaginable sight ! 

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf, 

Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, 

Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed. 

Molten together, and composing thus 

Each lost in each, 

* * * * 

' Below me was the earth : this little vale 

Lay low beneath my feet ; 'twas visible — 

I saw not, but I felt that it was there." 




SUNSET KOCK, CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. 



We have two more cuts illustrating different features of Catskill scenery, and 
with these we must close this series of tours. The Artist's Grotto is a water-worn 
cave, well worth a visit. The other scene is suggestive of a hundred different 
ravines, where the mountains are hidden from sight, and where — the rippling waters 
at oui^ feet, and the forest about us and above us — we may drink to the full of the 
enjoyment of solitude. 




ARTIST S GROTTO, CATSKILL. 



198 . Pictuyesqite Tours in Anierica. 

Among many pleasure-trips in this region, I would remember a walk or ride 
from Palenville up the new turnpike road to the Hotel Kaaterskill — two hours of 
steady climbing, gorge after gorge, hill after hill, until the great hotel on the crest 
of the mountain comes into view, with its crowds of visitors sitting on the broad 
piazzas, or walking on the noble terraces, in full enjoyment of the rare and breezy 
atmosphere, and of the magnificent views, and the whole bursting upon one, after 
the solitary pilgrimage, like a fairy creation or a new world. 

I shall never, too, forget the drive from Tannersville to Phoenicia, through Stony 
Clove, a great rift fifteen miles long, through mountains three or four thousand 
feet high. Here the air was delightfully cool on the hottest day of a hot season, 
no damp, and no mosquitoes either. In some of the deeper crevices thin layers of 
ice were found by the more enthusiastic and diligent searchers. 

Another ever-to-be-remembered trip, was by Pelham's Four Corners up the 
ravine of Rip Van Winkle, the Sleepy Hollow of the Catskills, past the spot said 
to be the scene, as depicted by Irving, of poor old Rip's long sleep — and so on, 
slowly, by the mountain and forest road, to the White Mountain House. On this 
trip we encountered a heavy rain and thunder storm, in which the reverberations 
and rolling echoes of the thunder among the hills were inexpressibly grand ; but 
we were thankful, as we neared the summit, to see the clouds roll away, to catch 
glimpses of the evening sunlight through the foliage, and to hear again the twitter- 
ing of the birds. 



And now the time has arrived for bringing these pleasant entertainments to a 
close. 

" Harp of the North, farewell ! The hills grow dark. 
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending." , 

We have had many a pleasant ramble over mountain, prairie, valley, and wood- 
land, and have gained, I hope, not only pleasure, but information and mental 
stimulus from our excursions. Let us cherish these pleasant memories, that they 
may suggest to us good and helpful thoughts in the path of life yet before us. 
And I do not know that I can better express my feelings or yours in closing this 




A CATSKILL BROOK. 



/ 

200 Picturesqite Tours in America. ^ "5^^ ^ 

volume of our adventures than by quoting from one of Mrs. Hemans's sweet 
songs : 

" There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes 

Can trace it midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise; 

We may find it where a hedgerow showers its blossoms o'er our way, 

Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last red light of day. 
***** 

" With shadows from the past we fill the happy woodland shades. 

And a mournful memory of the dead is with us in the glades ; 

And our dream-like fancies lend the wind an echo's plaintive tone 

Of voices, and melodies, and of silvery laughter gone. 
***** 

"Yet should this be ? Too much, too soon, despondingly we yield ! 
A better lesson we are taught by the lilies of the field ! 
A sweeter by the birds of heaven — which tell us, in their flight, 
Of One that through the desert air forever guides them right." 






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